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Title: Man's Place in Nature, and Other Essays

Author: Thomas Henry Huxley

Author of introduction, etc.: Sir Oliver Lodge

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Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MAN'S PLACE
IN NATURE, AND OTHER ESSAYS ***

EVERYMAN’S LIBRARY

EDITED BY ERNEST RHYS

SCIENCE

HUXLEY’S ESSAYS

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

SIR OLIVER LODGE

THE PUBLISHERS OF EVERYMAN’S LIBRARY WILL BE PLEASED TO SEND
FREELY TO ALL APPLICANTS A LIST OF THE PUBLISHED AND PROJECTED
VOLUMES TO BE COMPRISED UNDER THE FOLLOWING TWELVE HEADINGS:

TRAVEL ☙ SCIENCE ☙ FICTION
THEOLOGY & PHILOSOPHY
HISTORY ☙ CLASSICAL
CHILDREN’S BOOKS

ESSAYS ☙ ORATORY
POETRY & DRAMA
BIOGRAPHY
ROMANCE

IN TWO STYLES OF BINDING, CLOTH, FLAT BACK, COLOURED
TOP, AND LEATHER, ROUND CORNERS, GILT TOP.
London: J. M. DENT & CO.

First Edition, February 1906

Reprinted July 1906

CONTENTS
PAGE
I. On the Natural History of the Man-Like Apes 1
II. On the Relations of Man to the Lower Animals 52
III. On Some Fossil Remains of Man 111
IV. The Present Condition of Organic Nature 151
V. The Past Condition of Organic Nature 168
The Method by which the Causes of the Present and Past
VI.
Conditions of Organic
Nature are to be Discovered.—The Origination of Living
186
Beings
The Perpetuation of Living Beings, Hereditary Transmission
VII. 208
and Variation
The Conditions of Existence as Affecting the Perpetuation
VIII. 225
of Living Beings
A Critical Examination of the Position of Mr. Darwin’s
IX.
Work, “On the
Origin of Species,” in Relation to the Complete Theory of
the Causes of the
Phenomena of Organic Nature 245
X. On the Educational Value of the Natural History Sciences 264
(Lecture delivered at St. Martin’s Hall, July 22, 1854).
XI. On the Persistent Types of Animal Life 283
(Lecture delivered at the Royal Institution, June 3, 1859.)
XII. Time and Life 287
(Macmillan’s Magazine, December 1859.)
XIII. Darwin on the Origin of Species 299
(Westminster Review, April 1860.)
XIV. The Darwinian Hypothesis 337
(Times, December 26, 1859.)

XV. A Lobster; or, The Study of Zoology 352
(Lecture delivered at South Kensington Museum, May 14,
1860).

INTRODUCTION
Forty years ago the position of scientific studies was not so firmly
established as it is to-day, and a conflict was necessary to secure their
general recognition. The forces of obscurantism and of free and easy
dogmatism were arrayed against them; and, just as in former centuries
astronomy, and in more recent times geology, so in our own lifetime
biology, has had to offer a harsh and fighting front, lest its progress be
impeded by the hostility born of preconceived opinions, and by the bigotry
of self-appointed guardians of conservative views.
The man who probably did as much as any to fight the battle of science in
the nineteenth century, and secure the victory for free enquiry and
progressive knowledge, is Thomas Henry Huxley; and it is an interesting
fact that already the lapse of time is making it possible to bring his writings
in cheap form to the notice of a multitude of interested readers. The
pugnacious attitude, however, which, forty years ago, was appropriate, has
become a little antique now; the conflict is not indeed over, but it has either
totally shifted its ground, or is continued on the old battlefield chiefly by
survivors, and by a few of a younger generation who have been brought up
in the old spirit.
The truths of materialism now run but little risk of being denied or ignored,
they run perhaps some danger of being exaggerated. Brilliantly true and
successful in their own territory, they are occasionally pushed by
enthusiastic disciples over the frontier line into regions where they can do
nothing but break down. As if enthusiastic worshippers of motor-cars, proud
of their performance on the good roads of France, should take them over
into the Sahara or essay them on a Polar expedition.
That represents the mistake which, in modern times, by careless thinkers, is
being made. They tend to press the materialistic statements and scientific
doctrines of a great man like Huxley, as if they were co-extensive with all
existence. This is not really a widening of the materialistic aspect of things,

it is a cramping of everything else; it is an attempt to limit the universe to
one of its aspects.
But the mistake is not made solely, nor even chiefly, by those eager
disciples who are pursuing the delusive gleam of a materialistic philosophy
—for these there is hope,—to attempt is a healthy exercise, and they will
find out their mistake in time; but the mistake is also made by those who are
specially impressed with the spiritual side of things, who so delight to see
guidance and management everywhere, that they wish to blind their eyes to
the very mechanism whereby it is accomplished. They think that those who
point out and earnestly study the mechanism are undermining the
foundations of faith. Nothing of the kind. A traveller in the deck-cabin of an
Atlantic liner may prefer to ignore the engines and the firemen, and all the
machinery and toil which is urging him luxuriously forward over the waves
in the sunshine; he may try to imagine that he is on a sailing vessel
propelled by the free air of heaven alone; but there is just as much
utilization of natural forces to a desired end in one case of navigation as in
the other, and every detail of the steamship, down to the last drop of sweat
from a fireman’s grimy body, is an undeniable reality.
There are people who still resent the conclusions of biology as to man’s
place in nature, and try to counteract them; but, as the late Professor Ritchie
said (“Philosophical Studies,” page 24)—
“It is a mistake, which has constantly been made in the past by those who are anxious for
the spiritual interests of man, to interfere with the changes which are going on in scientific
conceptions. Such interference has always ended in the defeat of the supporters of the
quasi-scientific doctrines which the growing science of the time has discarded. Theology
interfered with Galileo, and gained nothing in the end by its interference. Astronomy,
geology, biology, anthropology, historical criticism, have at different periods raised alarm
in the minds of those who dread a materialistic view of man’s nature; and with the very
best intentions they have tried to fight the supposed enemy on his own ground, eagerly
welcoming, for instance, every sign of disagreement between Darwinians and
Lamarckians, or every dispute between different schools of historical critics, as if the
spiritual well-being of mankind were bound up with the scientific beliefs of the
seventeenth, or even earlier, century, as if e.g. it made all the difference in man’s spiritual
nature whether he was made directly out of inorganic dust or slowly ascended from lower
organic forms. These are questions that must be settled by specialists. On the other hand,
philosophic criticism is in place when the scientific specialist begins to dogmatize about
the universe as a whole, when he speaks for example as if an accurate narrative of the
various steps by which the lower forms of life have passed into the higher was a sufficient
explanation to us of the mystery of existence.”

Let it be understood, therefore, that science is one thing, and philosophy
another: that science most properly concerns itself with matter and motion,
and reduces phenomena, as far as it can, to mechanism. The more
successfully it does that, the more it fulfils its end and aim; but when, on the
strength of that achievement, it seeks to blossom into a philosophy, when it
endeavours to conclude that its scope is complete and all-inclusive, that
nothing exists in the universe but mechanism, and that the aspect of things
from a scientific point of view is their only aspect,—then it is becoming
narrow and bigoted and deserving of rebuke. Such rebuke it received from
Huxley, such rebuke it will always receive from scientific men who realize
properly the magnitude of existence and the vast potentialities of the
universe.
Our opportunities of exploration are good as far as they go, but they are not
extensive; we live as it were in the mortar of one of the stones of St. Paul’s
Cathedral; and yet so assiduously have we cultivated our faculties that we
can trace something of the outline of the whole design and have begun to
realize the plan of the building—a surprising feat for insects of limited
faculty. And—continuing the parable—two schools of thought have arisen:
one saying that it was conceived in the mind of an architect and designed
and built wholly by him, the other saying that it was put together stone by
stone in accordance with the laws of mechanics and physics. Both
statements are true, and those that emphasize the latter are not thereby
denying the existence of Christopher Wren, though to the unwise
enthusiasts on the side of design they may appear to be doing so. Each side
is stating a truth, and neither side is stating the whole truth. Nor should we
find it easy with all our efforts to state the whole truth exhaustively, even
about such a thing as that. Those who deny any side of truth are to that
extent unbelievers, and Huxley was righteously indignant with those
shortsighted bigots who blasphemed against that aspect of divine truth
which had been specially revealed to him. This is what he lived to preach,
and to this he was faithful to the uttermost.
Let him be thought of as a devotee of truth, and a student of the more
materialistic side of things, but never let him be thought of as a
philosophical materialist or as one who abounded in cheap negations.

The objection which it is necessary to express concerning Materialism as a
complete system is based not on its assertions but on its negations. In so far
as it makes positive assertions, embodying the result of scientific discovery
and even of scientific speculation based thereupon, there is no fault to find
with it; but when, on the strength of that, it sets up to be a philosophy of the
universe—all inclusive, therefore, and shutting out a number of truths
otherwise perceived, or which appeal to other faculties, or which are
equally true and are not really contradictory of legitimately materialistic
statements—then it is that its insufficiency and narrowness have to be
displayed. As Professor Ritchie said:—“The ‘legitimate materialism of the
sciences’ simply means temporary and convenient abstraction from the
cognitive conditions under which there are ‘facts’ or ‘objects’ for us at all; it
is ‘dogmatic materialism’ which is metaphysics of the bad sort.”
It will be probably instructive, and it may be sufficient, if I show that two
great leaders in scientific thought (one the greatest of all men of science
who have yet lived), though well aware of much that could be said
positively on the materialistic side, and very willing to admit or even to
extend the province of science or exact knowledge to the uttermost, yet
were very far from being philosophic materialists or from imagining that
other modes of regarding the universe were thereby excluded.
Great leaders of thought, in fact, are not accustomed to take a narrow view
of existence, or to suppose that one mode of regarding it, or one set of
formulæ expressing it, can possibly be sufficient and complete. Even a
sheet of paper has two sides: a terrestrial globe presents different aspects
from different points of view; a crystal has a variety of facets; and the
totality of existence is not likely to be more simple than any of these—is
not likely to be readily expressible in any form of words, or to be
thoroughly conceivable by any human mind.
It may be well to remember that Sir Isaac Newton was a Theist of the most
pronounced and thorough conviction, although he had a great deal to do
with the reduction of the major Cosmos to mechanics, i.e., with its
explanation by the elaborated machinery of simple forces; and he conceived
it possible that, in the progress of science, this process of reduction to
mechanics would continue till it embraced nearly all the phenomena of
nature. (See extract below.) That, indeed, has been the effort of science ever

since, and therein lies the legitimate basis for materialistic statements,
though not for a materialistic philosophy.
The following sound remarks concerning Newton are taken from Huxley’s
“Hume,” p. 246:—
“Newton demonstrated all the host of heaven to be but the elements of a vast mechanism,
regulated by the same laws as those which express the falling of a stone to the ground.
There is a passage in the preface to the first edition of the ‘Principia’ which shows that
Newton was penetrated, as completely as Descartes, with the belief that all the phenomena
of nature are expressible in terms of matter and motion:—
“‘Would that the rest of the phenomena of nature could be deduced by a like kind of
reasoning from mechanical principles. For many circumstances lead me to suspect that all
these phenomena may depend upon certain forces, in virtue of which the particles of
bodies, by causes not yet known, are either mutually impelled against one another, and
cohere into regular figures, or repel and recede from one another; which forces being
unknown, philosophers have as yet explored nature in vain. But I hope that, either by this
method of philosophizing, or by some other and better, the principles here laid down may
throw some light upon the matter.’”

Here is a full-blown anticipation of an intelligible exposition of the
Universe in terms of matter and force—the substantial basis of what smaller
men call materialism and develop into what they consider to be a
materialistic philosophy. But there is no necessity for any such scheme; and
Professor Huxley himself, who is commonly spoken of by half-informed
people as if he were a philosophic materialist, was really nothing of the
kind; for although, like Newton, fully imbued with the mechanical doctrine,
and of course far better informed concerning the biological departments of
nature, and the discoveries which have in the last century been made,—and
though he rightly regarded it as his mission to make the scientific point of
view clear to his benighted contemporaries, and was full of enthusiasm for
the facts on which materialists take their stand,—he saw clearly that these
alone were insufficient for a philosophy. The following extracts from the
Hume volume will show that he entirely repudiated materialism as a
satisfactory or complete philosophical system, and that he was especially
severe on gratuitous denials applied to provinces beyond our scope:—
“While it is the summit of human wisdom to learn the limit of our faculties, it may be wise
to recollect that we have no more right to make denials, than to put forth affirmatives,
about what lies beyond that limit. Whether either mind or matter has a ‘substance’ or not, is
a problem which we are incompetent to discuss: and it is just as likely that the common
notions upon the subject should be correct as any others.... ‘The same principles which, at

first view, lead to scepticism, pursued to a certain point, bring men back to common
sense’ ” (p. 282).
“Moreover, the ultimate forms of existence which we distinguish in our little speck of the
universe are, possibly, only two out of infinite varieties of existence, not only analogous to
matter and analogous to mind, but of kinds which we are not competent so much as to
conceive,—in the midst of which, indeed, we might be set down, with no more notion of
what was about us, than the worm in a flower-pot, on a London balcony, has of the life of
the great city.” (p. 286)

And again on pp. 251 and 279:—
“It is worth any amount of trouble to ... know by one’s own knowledge the great truth ...
that the honest and rigorous following up of the argument which leads us to ‘materialism’
inevitably carries us beyond it.”
“To sum up. If the materialist affirms that the universe and all its phenomena are resolvable
into matter and motion, Berkeley replies, True; but what you call matter and motion are
known to us only as forms of consciousness; their being is to be conceived or known; and
the existence of a state of consciousness apart from a thinking mind is a contradiction in
terms.
“I conceive that this reasoning is irrefragable. And, therefore, if I were obliged to choose
between absolute materialism and absolute idealism, I should feel compelled to accept the
latter alternative.”

Let the jubilant but uninstructed and comparatively ignorant amateur
materialist therefore beware, and bethink himself twice or even thrice
before he conceives that he understands the universe and is competent to
pour scorn upon the intuitions and perceptions of great men in what may be
to him alien regions of thought and experience.
Let him explain, if he can, what he means by his own identity, or the
identity of any thinking or living being, which at different times consists of
a totally different set of material particles. Something there clearly is which
confers personal identity and constitutes an individual: it is a property
characteristic of every form of life, even the humblest; but it is not yet
explained or understood, and it is no answer to assert gratuitously that there
is some fundamental substance or material basis on which that identity
depends, any more than it is an explanation to say that it depends upon a
soul. These are all forms of words. As Hume says, quoted by Huxley with
approval, in the work already cited, p. 194:—
“It is impossible to attach any definite meaning to the word ‘substance,’ when employed
for the hypothetical substratum of soul and matter.... If it be said that our personal identity
requires the assumption of a substance which remains the same while the accidents of

perception shift and change, the question arises what is meant by personal identity?... A
plant or an animal, in the course of its existence, from the condition of an egg or seed to the
end of life, remains the same neither in form, nor in structure, nor in the matter of which it
is composed: every attribute it possesses is constantly changing, and yet we say that it is
always one and the same individual” (p. 194).

And in his own preface to the Hume volume Huxley expresses himself
forcibly thus—equally antagonistic as was his wont to both ostensible
friend and ostensible foe, as soon as they got off what he considered the
straight path:—
“That which it may be well for us not to forget is, that the first-recorded judicial murder of
a scientific thinker [Socrates] was compassed and effected, not by a despot, nor by priests,
but was brought about by eloquent demagogues.... Clear knowledge of what one does not
know is just as important as knowing what one does know....
“The development of exact natural knowledge in all its vast range, from physics to history
and criticism, is the consequence of the working out, in this province, of the resolution to
‘take nothing for truth without clear knowledge that it is such’; to consider all beliefs open
to criticism; to regard the value of authority as neither greater nor less, than as much as it
can prove itself to be worth. The modern spirit is not the spirit ‘which always denies,’
delighting only in destruction; still less is it that which builds castles in the air rather than
not construct; it is that spirit which works and will work ‘without haste and without rest,’
gathering harvest after harvest of truth into its barns, and devouring error with
unquenchable fire” (p. viii).

The harvesting of truth is a fairly safe operation, for if some falsehood be
inadvertently harvested along with the grain we may hope that, having a
less robust and hardy nature, it will before long be detected by its decaying
odour; but the rooting up and devouring of error with unquenchable fire is a
more dangerous enterprise, inasmuch as flames are apt to spread beyond
our control; and the lack of infallibility in the selection of error may to
future generations become painfully apparent.
The phrase represents a good healthy energetic mood however, and in a
world liable to become overgrown with weeds and choked with refuse, the
cleansing work of a firebrand may from time to time be a necessity, in order
that the free wind of heaven and the sunlight may once more reach the
fertile soil.
But it is unfair to think of Huxley even when young as a firebrand, though it
is true that he was to some extent a man of war, and though the fierce and
consuming mood is rather more prominent in his early writings than in his
later work.

A fighting attitude was inevitable forty years ago, because then the truths of
biology were being received with hostility, and the free science and
philosophy of a later time seemed likely to have a poor chance of life. But
the world has changed or is changing now, the wholesome influences of fire
have done their work, and it would be a rather barbarous anachronism to
apply the same agency among the young green shoots of healthy learning
which are springing up in the cleared ground.
OLIVER LODGE.
1906.

Among the earlier published works of T. H. Huxley (1825-1895), and of the
essays contained in this volume: “The Darwinian Hypothesis” first
appeared in the Times, Dec. 26, 1859; “On the Educational Value of the
Natural History Sciences” (Address given at St. Martin’s Hall), was
published in 1854; “Time and Life” (Macmillan’s Magazine), Dec. 1859;
“The Origin of Species” (Westminster Review), April 1860; “A Lobster: or,
The Study of Zoology,” 1861. “Geological Contemporaneity and Persistent
Types of Life” (Address to Geological Society), 1862, was re-published in
“Lay Sermons,” vol. viii.; “Six Lectures to Working Men on the Phenomena
of Organic Nature,” 1863, in “Collected Essays,” vol. vii. “Evidence as to
Man’s Place in Nature,” 1863. Of his other works, the translation by Huxley
and Busk of “Kölliker’s Manual of Human Histology,” appeared in 1853.
“Lectures on the Elements of Comparative Anatomy,” “Elementary Atlas of
Comparative Osteology”; two Science Lectures, “The Circulation of the
Blood” and “Corals and Coral Reefs,” and “Lessons in Elementary
Physiology,” in 1866. “Introduction to the Classification of Animals,” 1869.
“Lay Sermons, Essays, and Reviews,” 1870. “Critiques and Addresses,”
1873. “On Yeast: A Lecture,” 1872. “A Manual of the Anatomy of
Vertebrated Animals,” 1871. “Manual of the Anatomy of Invertebrated
Animals,” 1877. “American Addresses,” 1877. “Physiography,” 1877.
“Hume” in “English Men of Letters,” 1878. “The Crayfish: an Introduction
to the Study of Zoology,” 1880. “Science and Culture, and other Essays,”
1881. “Essays upon some Controverted Questions,” 1892. “Evolution and

Ethics” (the Romanes Lecture), 1893. Huxley also assisted in editing the
series of Science Primers published by Messrs. Macmillan, and contributed
the introductory volume himself. The “Collected Essays,” in nine vols.,
containing all that he cared to preserve, 1893. “The Scientific Memoirs of
T. H. Huxley,” edited by Professor Michael Foster and Professor E. Ray
Lankester, in five vols., 1898-1903. His “Life and Letters,” edited by his
son, Leonard Huxley, was published in 1900.

Photographically reduced from Diagrams of the natural size (except that of the Gibbon, which
was twice as large as nature), drawn by Mr. Waterhouse Hawkins from specimens in the
Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons.

HUXLEY’S ESSAYS

I

ON THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE MAN-
LIKE APES.
Ancient traditions, when tested by the severe processes of modern
investigation, commonly enough fade away into mere dreams: but it is
singular how often the dream turns out to have been a half-waking one,
presaging a reality. Ovid foreshadowed the discoveries of the geologist: the
Atlantis was an imagination, but Columbus found a western world: and
though the quaint forms of Centaurs and Satyrs have an existence only in
the realms of art, creatures approaching man more nearly than they in
essential structure, and yet as thoroughly brutal as the goat’s or horse’s half
of the mythical compound, are now not only known, but notorious.
I have not met with any notice of one of these Man-like Apes of earlier date
than that contained in Pigafetta’s “Description of the Kingdom of
Congo,”[1] drawn up from the notes of a Portuguese sailor, Eduardo Lopez,
and published in 1598. The tenth chapter of this work is entitled “De
Animalibus quæ in hac provincia reperiuntur,” and contains a brief passage
to the effect that “in the Songan country, on the banks of the Zaire, there are
multitudes of apes, which afford great delight to the nobles by imitating
human gestures.” As this might apply to almost any kind of apes, I should
have thought little of it, had not the brothers De Bry, whose engravings
illustrate the work, thought fit, in their eleventh “Argumentum,” to figure
two of these “Simiæ magnatum deliciæ.” So much of the plate as contains
these apes is faithfully copied in the woodcut (Fig. 1), and it will be
observed that they are tail-less, long-armed, and large-eared; and about the
size of Chimpanzees. It may be that these apes are as much figments of the
imagination of the ingenious brothers as the winged, two-legged, crocodile-
headed dragon which adorns the same plate; or, on the other hand, it may be
that the artists have constructed their drawings from some essentially
faithful description of a Gorilla or a Chimpanzee. And, in either case,

though these figures are worth a passing notice, the oldest trustworthy and
definite accounts of any animal of this kind date from the 17th century, and
are due to an Englishman.

Fig. 1.—Simiæ magnatum deliciæ.—De Bry, 1598.

The first edition of that most amusing old book, “Purchas his Pilgrimage,”
was published in 1613, and therein are to be found many references to the
statements of one whom Purchas terms “Andrew Battell (my neere
neighbour, dwelling at Leigh in Essex) who served under Manuel Silvera
Perera, Governor under the King of Spaine, at his city of Saint Paul, and
with him went farre into the countrey of Angola”; and again, “my friend,
Andrew Battle, who lived in the kingdom of Congo many yeares,” and who,

“upon some quarell betwixt the Portugals (among whom he was a sergeant
of a band) and him, lived eight or nine moneths in the woodes.” From this
weather-beaten old soldier, Purchas was amazed to hear “of a kinde of
Great Apes, if they might so bee termed, of the height of a man, but twice as
bigge in feature of their limmes, with strength proportionable, hairie all
over, otherwise altogether like men and women in their whole bodily shape.
[2]
They lived on such wilde fruits as the trees and woods yielded, and in the
night time lodged on the trees.”
This extract is, however, less detailed and clear in its statements than a
passage in the third chapter of the second part of another work—“Purchas
his Pilgrimes,” published in 1625, by the same author—which has been
often, though hardly ever quite rightly, cited. The chapter is entitled, “The
strange adventures of Andrew Battell, of Leigh in Essex, sent by the
Portugals prisoner to Angola, who lived there and in the adjioining regions
neere eighteene yeeres.” And the sixth section of this chapter is headed
—“Of the Provinces of Bongo, Calongo, Mayombe, Manikesocke,
Motimbas: of the Ape Monster Pongo, their hunting: Idolatries; and divers
other observations.”
“This province (Calongo) toward the east bordereth upon Bongo, and toward the north
upon Mayombe, which is nineteen leagues from Longo along the coast.
“This province of Mayombe is all woods and groves, so overgrowne that a man may
travaile twentie days in the shadow without any sunne or heat. Here is no kind of corne nor
graine, so that the people liveth onely upon plantanes and roots of sundrie sorts, very good;
and nuts; nor any kinde of tame cattell, nor hens.
“But they have great store of elephant’s flesh, which they greatly esteeme, and many kinds
of wild beasts; and great store of fish. Here is a great sandy bay, two leagues to the
northward of Cape Negro,[3] which is the port of Mayombe. Sometimes the Portugals lade
log-wood in this bay. Here is a great river, called Banna: in the winter it hath no barre,
because the generall winds cause a great sea. But when the sunne hath his south
declination, then a boat may goe in; for then it is smooth because of the raine. This river is
very great, and hath many ilands and people dwelling in them. The woods are so covered
with baboones, monkies, apes and parrots, that it will feare any man to travaile in them
alone. Here are also two kinds of monsters, which are common in these woods, and very
dangerous.
“The greatest of these two monsters is called Pongo in their language, and the lesser is
called Engeco. This Pongo is in all proportion like a man; but that he is more like a giant in
stature than a man; for he is very tall, and hath a man’s face, hollow-eyed, with long haire
upon his browes. His face and eares are without haire, and his hands also. His bodie is full
of haire, but not very thicke; and it is of a dunnish colour.

“He differeth not from a man but in his legs; for they have no calfe. Hee goeth alwaies
upon his legs, and carrieth his hands clasped in the nape of his necke when he goeth upon
the ground. They sleepe in the trees, and build shelters for the raine. They feed upon fruit
that they find in the woods, and upon nuts, for they eate no kind of flesh. They cannot
speake, and have no understanding more than a beast. The people of the countrie, when
they travaile in the woods make fires where they sleepe in the night; and in the morning
when they are gone, the Pongoes will come and sit about the fire till it goeth out; for they
have no understanding to lay the wood together. They goe many together and kill many
negroes that travaile in the woods. Many times they fall upon the elephants which come to
feed where they be, and so beate them with their clubbed fists, and pieces of wood, that
they will runne roaring away from them. Those Pongoes are never taken alive because they
are so strong, that ten men cannot hold one of them; but yet they take many of their young
ones with poisoned arrowes.
“The young Pongo hangeth on his mother’s belly with his hands fast clasped about her, so
that when the countrie people kill any of the females they take the young one, which
hangeth fast upon his mother.
“When they die among themselves, they cover the dead with great heaps of boughs and
wood, which is commonly found in the forest.”[4]

It does not appear difficult to identify the exact region of which Battell
speaks. Longo is doubtless the name of the place usually spelled Loango on
our maps. Mayombe still lies some nineteen leagues northward from
Loango, along the coast; and Cilongo or Kilonga, Manikesocke, and
Motimbas are yet registered by geographers. The Cape Negro of Battell,
however, cannot be the modern Cape Negro in 16° S., since Loango itself is
in 4° S. latitude. On the other hand, the “great river called Banna”
corresponds very well with the “Camma” and “Fernand Vas,” of modern
geographers, which form a great delta on this part of the African coast.
Now this “Camma” country is situated about a degree and a-half south of
the Equator, while a few miles to the north of the line lies the Gaboon, and a
degree or so north of that, the Money River—both well known to modern
naturalists as localities where the largest of man-like Apes has been
obtained. Moreover, at the present day, the word Engeco, or N’schego, is
applied by the natives of these regions to the smaller of the two great Apes
which inhabit them; so that there can be no rational doubt that Andrew
Battell spoke of that which he knew of his own knowledge, or, at any rate,
by immediate report from the natives of Western Africa. The “Engeco,”
however, is that “other monster” whose nature Battell “forgot to relate,”
while the name “Pongo”—applied to the animal whose characters and
habits are so fully and carefully described—seems to have died out, at least

in its primitive form and signification. Indeed, there is evidence that not
only in Battell’s time, but up to a very recent date, it was used in a totally
different sense from that in which he employs it.
For example, the second chapter of Purchas’ work, which I have just
quoted, contains “A Description and Historicall Declaration of the Golden
Kingdom of Guinea, &c. &c. Translated from the Dutch, and compared also
with the Latin,” wherein it is stated (p. 986) that—
“The River Gaboon lyeth about fifteen miles northward from Rio de Angra, and eight miles
northward from Cape de Lope Gonsalvez (Cape Lopez), and is right under the Equinoctial
line, about fifteene miles from St. Thomas, and is a great land, well and easily to be
knowne. At the mouth of the river there lieth a sand, three or foure fathoms deepe, whereon
it beateth mightily with the streame which runneth out of the river into the sea. This river,
in the mouth thereof, is at least four miles broad; but when you are about the Iland called
Pongo, it is not above two miles broad.... On both sides the river there standeth many
trees.... The Iland called Pongo, which hath a monstrous high hill.”

The French naval officers, whose letters are appended to the late M. Isidore
Geoff. Saint Hilaire’s excellent essay on the Gorilla,[5] note in similar terms
the width of the Gaboon, the trees that line its banks down to the water’s
edge, and the strong current that sets out of it. They describe two islands in
its estuary;—one low, called Perroquet; the other high, presenting three
conical hills, called Coniquet; and one of them, M. Franquet, expressly
states that, formerly, the Chief of Coniquet was called Meni-Pongo,
meaning thereby Lord of Pongo; and that the N’Pongues (as, in agreement
with Dr. Savage, he affirms the natives call themselves) term the estuary of
the Gaboon itself N’Pongo.
It is so easy, in dealing with savages, to misunderstand their applications of
words to things, that one is at first inclined to suspect Battell of having
confounded the name of this region, where his “greater monster” still
abounds, with the name of the animal itself. But he is so right about other
matters (including the name of the “lesser monster”) that one is loth to
suspect the old traveller of error; and, on the other hand, we shall find that a
voyager of a hundred years’ later date speaks of the name “Boggoe,” as
applied to a great Ape, by the inhabitants of quite another part of Africa—
Sierra Leone.
But I must leave this question to be settled by philologers and travellers;
and I should hardly have dwelt so long upon it except for the curious part

played by this word “Pongo” in the later
history of the man-like Apes.
The generation which succeeded Battell saw
the first of the man-like Apes which was ever
brought to Europe, or, at any rate, whose visit
found a historian. In the third book of Tulpius’
“Observationes Medicæ,” published in 1641,
the 56th chapter or section is devoted to what
he calls Satyrus indicus, “called by the Indians
Orang-autang, or Man-of-the-Woods, and by
the Africans Quoias Morrou.” He gives a very
good figure, evidently from the life, of the
specimen of this animal, “nostra memoria ex
Angolâ delatum,” presented to Frederick
Fig. 2.—The Orang of Tulpius,
Henry Prince of Orange. Tulpius says it was as
1641.
big as a child of three years old, and as stout as
one of six years: and that its back was covered
with black hair. It is plainly a young Chimpanzee.
In the meanwhile, the existence of other, Asiatic, man-like Apes became
known, but at first in a very mythical fashion. Thus Bontius (1658) gives an
altogether fabulous and ridiculous account and figure of an animal which he
calls “Orang-outang”; and though he says, “vidi Ego cujus effigiem hic
exhibeo,” the said effigies (see Fig. 6 for Hoppius’ copy of it) is nothing but
a very hairy woman of rather comely aspect, and with proportions and feet
wholly human. The judicious English anatomist, Tyson, was justified in
saying of this description by Bontius, “I confess I do mistrust the whole
representation.”
It is to the last mentioned writer, and his coadjutor Cowper, that we owe the
first account of a man-like ape which has any pretensions to scientific
accuracy and completeness. The treatise entitled, “Orang-outang, sive
Homo Sylvestris; or the Anatomy of a Pygmie compared with that of a
Monkey, an Ape, and a Man,” published by the Royal Society in 1699, is,
indeed, a work of remarkable merit, and has, in some respects, served as a
model to subsequent inquirers. This “Pygmie,” Tyson tells us, “was brought
from Angola, in Africa; but was first taken a great deal higher up the

country”; its hair “was of a coal-black colour, and strait,” and “when it went
as a quadruped on all four, ’twas awkwardly; not placing the palm of the
hand flat to the ground, but it walk’d upon its knuckles, as I observed it to
do when weak and had not strength enough to support its body.”—“From
the top of the head to the heel of the foot, in a strait line, it measured
twenty-six inches.”

Figs. 3 and 4.—The “Pygmie” reduced from Tyson’s figures 1 and 2, 1699.

These characters, even without Tyson’s good figures (Figs. 3 and 4), would
have been sufficient to prove his “Pygmie” to be a young Chimpanzee. But
the opportunity of examining the skeleton of the very animal Tyson
anatomised having most unexpectedly presented itself to me, I am able to
bear independent testimony to its being a veritable Troglodytes niger,[6]
though still very young. Although fully appreciating the resemblances

between his Pygmie and Man, Tyson by no means overlooked the
differences between the two, and he concludes his memoir by summing up
first, the points in which “the Ourang-outang or Pygmie more resembled a
Man than Apes and Monkeys do,” under forty-seven distinct heads; and
then giving, in thirty-four similar brief paragraphs, the respects in which
“the Ourang-outang or Pygmie differ’d from a Man and resembled more the
Ape and Monkey kind.”
After a careful survey of the literature of the subject extant in his time, our
author arrives at the conclusion that his “Pygmie” is identical neither with
the Orangs of Tulpius and Bontius, nor with the Quoias Morrou of Dapper
(or rather of Tulpius), the Barris of d’Arcos, nor with the Pongo of Battell;
but that it is a species of ape probably identical with the Pygmies of the
Ancients, and, says Tyson, though it “does so much resemble a Man in
many of its parts, more than any of the ape kind, or any other animal in the
world, that I know of: yet by no means do I look upon it as the product of a
mixt generation—’tis a Brute-Animal sui generis, and a particular species of
Ape.”
The name of “Chimpanzee,” by which one of the African Apes is now so
well known, appears to have come into use in the first half of the eighteenth
century, but the only important addition made, in that period, to our
acquaintance with the man-like Apes of Africa is contained in “A New
Voyage to Guinea,” by William Smith, which bears the date 1744.
In describing the animals of Sierra Leone, p. 51, this writer says:—
“I shall next describe a strange sort of animal, called by the white men in this country
Mandrill,[7] but why it is so called I know not, nor did I ever hear the name before, neither
can those who call them so tell, except it be for their near resemblance of a human creature,
though nothing at all like an Ape. Their bodies, when full grown, are as big in
circumference as a middle-sized man’s—their legs much shorter, and their feet larger; their
arms and hands in proportion. The head is monstrously big, and the face broad and flat,
without any other hair but the eyebrows; the nose very small, the mouth wide, and the lips
thin. The face, which is covered by a white skin, is monstrously ugly, being all over
wrinkled as with old age; the teeth broad and yellow; the hands have no more hair than the
face, but the same white skin, though all the rest of the body is covered with long black
hair, like a bear. They never go upon all fours, like apes; but cry, when vexed or teased, just
like children....

Fig. 5.—Facsimile of William Smith’s figure of the “Mandrill,” 1744.

“When I was at Sherbro, one Mr. Cummerbus, whom I shall have occasion hereafter to
mention, made me a present of one of these strange animals, which are called by the
natives Boggoe: it was a she-cub, of six months’ age, but even then larger than a Baboon. I
gave it in charge to one of the slaves, who knew how to feed and nurse it, being a very
tender sort of animal; but whenever I went off the deck the sailors began to teaze it—some
loved to see its tears and hear it cry; others hated its snotty-nose; one who hurt it, being
checked by the negro that took care of it, told the slave he was very fond of his country-
woman, and asked him if he should not like her for a wife? To which the slave very readily
replied, ‘No, this no my wife; this a white woman—this fit wife for you.’ This unlucky wit
of the negro’s, I fancy, hastened its death, for next morning it was found dead under the
windlass.”

William Smith’s “Mandrill,” or “Boggoe,” as his description and figure
testify, was, without doubt, a Chimpanzee.

Fig. 6.—The Anthropomorpha of Linnæus.

Linnæus knew nothing, of his own observation, of the man-like Apes of
either Africa or Asia, but a dissertation by his pupil Hoppius in the
“Amœnitates Academicæ” (VI. “Anthropomorpha”) may be regarded as
embodying his views respecting these animals.
The dissertation is illustrated by a plate, of which the accompanying
woodcut, Fig. 6, is a reduced copy. The figures are entitled (from left to
right) 1. Troglodyta Bontii; 2. Lucifer Aldrovandi; 3. Satyrus Tulpii; 4.
Pygmæus Edwardi. The first is a bad copy of Bontius’ fictitious “Ourang-
outang,” in whose existence, however, Linnæus appears to have fully
believed; for in the standard edition of the “Systema Naturæ,” it is
enumerated as a second species of Homo; “H. nocturnus.” Lucifer
Aldrovandi is a copy of a figure in Aldrovandus, “De Quadrupedibus
digitatis viviparis,” Lib. 2, p. 249 (1645), entitled “Cercopithecus formæ
raræ Barbilius vocatus et originem a china ducebat.” Hoppius is of opinion
that this may be one of that cat-tailed people, of whom Nicolaus Köping
affirms that they eat a boat’s crew, “gubernator navis” and all! In the
“Systema Naturæ” Linnæus calls it in a note, Homo caudatus, and seems
inclined to regard it as a third species of man. According to Temminck,
Satyrus Tulpii is a copy of the figure of a Chimpanzee published by Scotin
in 1738, which I have not seen. It is the Satyrus indicus of the “Systema

Naturæ,” and is regarded by Linnæus as possibly a distinct species from
Satyrus sylvestris. The last, named Pygmæus Edwardi, is copied from the
figure of a young “Man of the Woods,” or true Orang-Utan, given in
Edwards “Gleanings of Natural History” (1758).
Buffon was more fortunate than his great rival. Not only had he the rare
opportunity of examining a young Chimpanzee in the living state, but he
became possessed of an adult Asiatic man-like Ape—the first and the last
adult specimen of any of these animals brought to Europe for many years.
With the valuable assistance of Daubenton, Buffon gave an excellent
description of this creature, which, from its singular proportions, he termed
the long-armed Ape, or Gibbon. It is the modern Hylobates lar.
Thus when, in 1766, Buffon wrote the fourteenth volume of his great work,
he was personally familiar with the young of one kind of African man-like
Ape, and with the adult of an Asiatic species—while the Orang-Utan and
the Mandrill of Smith were known to him by report. Furthermore, the Abbé
Prevost had translated a good deal of Purchas’ Pilgrims into French, in his
“Histoire générale des Voyages” (1748), and there Buffon found a version
of Andrew Battell’s account of the Pongo and the Engeco. All these data
Buffon attempts to weld together into harmony in his chapter entitled “Les
Orang-outangs ou le Pongo et le Jocko.” To this title the following note is
appended:—
“Orang-outang nom de cet animal aux Indes orientales: Pongo nom de cet animal à
Lowando Province de Congo.
“Jocko, Enjocko, nom de cet animal à Congo que nous avons adopté. En est l’article que
nous avons retranché.”

Thus it was that Andrew Battell’s “Engeco” became metamorphosed into
“Jocko,” and, in the latter shape, was spread all over the world, in
consequence of the extensive popularity of Buffon’s works. The Abbé
Prevost and Buffon between them, however, did a good deal more
disfigurement to Battell’s sober account than “cutting off an article.” Thus
Battell’s statement that the Pongos “cannot speake, and have no
understanding more than a beast,” is rendered by Buffon “qu’il ne peut
parler quoiqu’il ait plus d’entendement que les autres animaux”; and again,
Purchas’ affirmation, “He told me in conference with him, that one of these
Pongos tooke a negro boy of his which lived a moneth with them,” stands in

the French version, “un pongo lui enleva un petit negre qui passa un an
entier dans la societé de ces animaux.”
After quoting the account of the great Pongo, Buffon justly remarks, that all
the “Jockos” and “Orangs” hitherto brought to Europe were young; and he
suggests that, in their adult condition, they might be as big as the Pongo or
“great Orang”; so that, provisionally, he regarded the Jockos, Orangs, and
Pongos as all of one species. And perhaps this was as much as the state of
knowledge at the time warranted. But how it came about that Buffon failed
to perceive the similarity of Smith’s “Mandrill” to his own “Jocko,” and
confounded the former with so totally different a creature as the blue-faced
Baboon, is not so easily intelligible.

Twenty years later Buffon changed his opinion,[8] and expressed his belief
that the Orangs constituted a genus with two species,—a large one, the
Pongo of Battell, and a small one, the Jocko: that the small one (Jocko) is
the East Indian Orang; and that the young animals from Africa, observed by
himself and Tulpius, are simply young Pongos.
In the meanwhile, the Dutch naturalist, Vosmaer, gave, in 1778, a very good
account and figure of a young Orang, brought alive to Holland, and his
countryman, the famous anatomist, Peter Camper, published (1779) an
essay on the Orang-Utan of similar value to that of Tyson on the
Chimpanzee. He dissected several females and a male, all of which, from
the state of their skeleton and their dentition, he justly supposes to have
been young. However, judging by the analogy of man, he concludes that
they could not have exceeded four feet in height in the adult condition.
Furthermore, he is very clear as to the specific distinctness of the true East
Indian Orang.
“The Orang,” says he, “differs not only from the Pigmy of Tyson and from
the Orang of Tulpius by its peculiar colour and its long toes, but also by its
whole external form. Its arms, its hands, and its feet are longer, while the
thumbs, on the contrary, are much shorter, and the great toes much smaller
in proportion.”[9] And again, “The true Orang, that is to say, that of Asia,
that of Borneo, is consequently not the Pithecus, or tail-less Ape, which the
Greeks, and especially Galen, have described. It is neither the Pongo nor the
Jocko, nor the Orang of Tulpius, nor the Pigmy of Tyson,—it is an animal

of a peculiar species, as I shall prove in the clearest manner by the organs
of voice and the skeleton in the following chapters” (l. c. p. 64).
A few years later, M. Radermacher, who held a high office in the
Government of the Dutch dominions in India, and was an active member of
the Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences, published, in the second part of
the Transactions of that Society,[10] a Description of the Island of Borneo,
which was written between the years 1779 and 1781, and, among much
other interesting matter, contains some notes upon the Orang. The small sort
of Orang-Utan, viz. that of Vosmaer and of Edwards, he says, is found only
in Borneo, and chiefly about Banjermassing, Mampauwa, and Landak. Of
these he had seen some fifty during his residence in the Indies; but none
exceeded 21⁄2 feet in length. The larger sort, often regarded as chimæra,
continues Radermacher, would, perhaps long have remained so, had it not
been for the exertions of the Resident at Rembang, M. Palm, who, on
returning from Landak towards Pontiana, shot one, and forwarded it to
Batavia in spirit, for transmission to Europe.
Palm’s letter describing the capture runs thus:—“Herewith I send your
Excellency, contrary to all expectation (since long ago I offered more than a
hundred ducats to the natives for an Orang-Utan of four or five feet high) an
Orang which I heard of this morning about eight o’clock. For a long time
we did our best to take the frightful beast alive in the dense forest about half
way to Landak. We forgot even to eat, so anxious were we not to let him
escape; but it was necessary to take care he did not revenge himself, as he
kept continually breaking off heavy pieces of wood and green branches, and
dashing them at us. This game lasted till four o’clock in the afternoon, when
we determined to shoot him; in which I succeeded very well, and indeed
better than I ever shot from a boat before; for the bullet went just into the
side of his chest, so that he was not much damaged. We got him into the
prow still living, and bound him fast, and next morning he died of his
wounds. All Pontiana came on board to see him when we arrived.” Palm
gives his height from the head to the heel as 49 inches.
A very intelligent German officer, Baron Von Wurmb, who at this time held
a post in the Dutch East India service, and was Secretary of the Batavian
Society, studied this animal, and his careful description of it, entitled
“Beschrijving van der Groote Borneosche Orang-outang of de Oost-

Indische Pongo,” is contained in the same volume of the Batavian Society’s
Transactions. After Von Wurmb had drawn up his description he states, in a
letter dated Batavia, Feb. 18, 1781,[11] that the specimen was sent to Europe
in brandy to be placed in the collection of the Prince of Orange;
“unfortunately,” he continues, “we hear that the ship has been wrecked.”
Von Wurmb died in the course of the year 1781, the letter in which this
passage occurs being the last he wrote; but in his posthumous papers,
published in the fourth part of the Transactions of the Batavian Society,
there is a brief description, with measurements, of a female Pongo four feet
high.

Fig. 7.—The Pongo Skull, sent by Radermacher to Camper, after Camper’s original sketches,
as reproduced by Lucæ.

Did either of these original specimens, on which Von Wurmb’s descriptions
are based, ever reach Europe? It is commonly supposed that they did; but I
doubt the fact. For, appended to the memoir “De l’Ourang-outang,” in the
collected edition of Camper’s works, tome i., pp. 64-66, is a note by
Camper himself, referring to Von Wurmb’s papers, and continuing thus:
—“Heretofore, this kind of ape had never been known in Europe.
Radermacher has had the kindness to send me the skull of one of these
animals, which measured fifty-three inches, or four feet five inches, in
height. I have sent some sketches of it to M. Soemmering at Mayence,

which are better calculated, however, to give an idea of the form than of the
real size of the parts.”
These sketches have been reproduced by Fischer and by Lucæ, and bear
date 1783, Soemmering having received them in 1784. Had either of Von
Wurmb’s specimens reached Holland, they would hardly have been
unknown at this time to Camper, who, however, goes on to say:—“It
appears that since this, some more of these monsters have been captured,
for an entire skeleton, very badly set up, which had been sent to the
Museum of the Prince of Orange, and which I saw only on the 27th of June,
1784, was more than four feet high. I examined this skeleton again on the
19th December, 1785, after it had been excellently put to rights by the
ingenious Onymus.”
It appears evident, then, that this skeleton, which is doubtless that which has
always gone by the name of Wurmb’s Pongo, is not that of the animal
described by him, though unquestionably similar in all essential points.
Camper proceeds to note some of the most important features of this
skeleton; promises to describe it in detail by-and-bye; and is evidently in
doubt as to the relation of this great “Pongo” to his “petit Orang.”
The promised further investigations were never carried out; and so it
happened that the Pongo of Von Wurmb took its place by the side of the
Chimpanzee, Gibbon, and Orang as a fourth and colossal species of man-
like Ape. And indeed nothing could look much less like the Chimpanzees or
the Orangs, then known, than the Pongo; for all the specimens of
Chimpanzee and Orang which had been observed were small of stature,
singularly human in aspect, gentle and docile; while Wurmb’s Pongo was a
monster almost twice their size, of vast strength and fierceness, and very
brutal in expression; its great projecting muzzle, armed with strong teeth,
being further disfigured by the outgrowth of the cheeks into fleshy lobes.
Eventually, in accordance with the usual marauding habits of the
Revolutionary armies, the “Pongo” skeleton was carried away from Holland
into France, and notices of it, expressly intended to demonstrate its entire
distinctness from the Orang and its affinity with the baboons, were given, in
1798, by Geoffroy St. Hilaire and Cuvier.

Even in Cuvier’s “Tableau Elementaire,” and in the first edition of his great
work, the “Regne Animal,” the “Pongo” is classed as a species of Baboon.
However, so early as 1818, it appears that Cuvier saw reason to alter this
opinion, and to adopt the view suggested several years before by
Blumenbach,[12] and after him by Tilesius, that the Bornean Pongo is
simply an adult Orang. In 1824, Rudolphi demonstrated, by the condition of
the dentition, more fully and completely than had been done by his
predecessors, that the Orangs described up to that time were all young
animals, and that the skull and teeth of the adult would probably be such as
those seen in the Pongo of Wurmb. In the second edition of the “Regne
Animal” (1829), Cuvier infers, from the “proportions of all the parts” and
“the arrangements of the foramina and sutures of the head,” that the Pongo
is the adult of the Orang-Utan, “at least of a very closely allied species,”
and this conclusion was eventually placed beyond all doubt by Professor
Owen’s Memoir published in the “Zoological Transactions” for 1835, and
by Temminck in his “Monographies de Mammalogie.” Temminck’s memoir
is remarkable for the completeness of the evidence which it affords as to the
modification which the form of the Orang undergoes according to age and
sex. Tiedemann first published an account of the brain of the young Orang,
while Sandifort, Müller and Schlegel, described the muscles and the viscera
of the adult, and gave the earliest detailed and trustworthy history of the
habits of the great Indian Ape in a state of nature; and as important
additions have been made by later observers, we are at this moment better
acquainted with the adult of the Orang-Utan, than with that of any of the
other greater man-like Apes.

It is certainly the Pongo of Wurmb;[13] and it is as certainly not the Pongo
of Battell, seeing that the Orang-Utan is entirely confined to the great
Asiatic islands of Borneo and Sumatra.
And while the progress of discovery thus cleared up the history of the
Orang, it also became established that the only other man-like Apes in the
eastern world were the various species of Gibbon—Apes of smaller stature,
and therefore attracting less attention than the Orangs, though they are
spread over a much wider range of country, and are hence more accessible
to observation.

Although the geographical area inhabited by the “Pongo” and “Engeco” of
Battell is so much nearer to Europe than that in which the Orang and
Gibbon are found, our acquaintance with the African Apes has been of
slower growth; indeed, it is only within the last few years that the truthful
story of the old English adventurer has been rendered fully intelligible. It
was not until 1835 that the skeleton of the adult Chimpanzee became
known, by the publication of Professor Owen’s above-mentioned very
excellent memoir “On the osteology of the Chimpanzee and Orang,” in the
Zoological Transactions—a memoir which, by the accuracy of its
descriptions, the carefulness of its comparisons, and the excellence of its
figures, made an epoch in the history of our knowledge of the bony
framework, not only of the Chimpanzee, but of all the anthropoid Apes.
By the investigations herein detailed, it became evident that the old
Chimpanzee acquired a size and aspect as different from those of the young
known to Tyson, to Buffon, and to Traill, as those of the old Orang from the
young Orang; and the subsequent very important researches of Messrs.
Savage and Wyman, the American missionary and anatomist, have not only
confirmed this conclusion, but have added many new details.[14]
One of the most interesting among the many valuable discoveries made by
Dr. Thomas Savage is the fact, that the natives in the Gaboon country at the
present day, apply to the Chimpanzee a name—“Enché-eko”—which is
obviously identical with the “Engeko” of Battell; a discovery which has
been confirmed by all later inquirers. Battell’s “lesser monster,” being thus
proved to be a veritable existence, of course a strong presumption arose that
his “greater monster,” the “Pongo,” would sooner or later be discovered.
And, indeed, a modern traveller, Bowdich, had, in 1819, found strong
evidence, among the natives, of the existence of a second great Ape, called
the “Ingena,” “five feet high, and four across the shoulders,” the builder of
a rude house, on the outside of which it slept.
In 1847, Dr. Savage had the good fortune to make another and most
important addition to our knowledge of the man-like Apes; for, being
unexpectedly detained at the Gaboon river, he saw in the house of the Rev.
Mr. Wilson, a missionary resident there, “a skull represented by the natives
to be a monkey-like animal, remarkable for its size, ferocity, and habits.”
From the contour of the skull, and the information derived from several

intelligent natives, “I was induced,” says Dr. Savage (using the term Orang
in its old general sense), “to believe that it belonged to a new species of
Orang. I expressed this opinion to Mr. Wilson, with a desire for further
investigation; and, if possible, to decide the point by the inspection of a
specimen alive or dead.” The result of the combined exertions of Messrs.
Savage and Wilson was not only the obtaining of a very full account of the
habits of this new creature, but a still more important service to science, the
enabling the excellent American anatomist already mentioned, Professor
Wyman, to describe, from ample materials, the distinctive osteological
characters of the new form. This animal was called by the natives of the
Gaboon “Engé-ena,” a name obviously identical with the “Ingena” of
Bowdich; and Dr. Savage arrived at the conviction that this last discovered
of all the great Apes was the long-sought “Pongo” of Battell.
The justice of this conclusion, indeed, is beyond doubt—for not only does
the “Engé-ena” agree with Battell’s “greater monster” in its hollow eyes, its
great stature and its dun or iron-grey colour, but the only other man-like
Ape which inhabits these latitudes—the Chimpanzee—is at once identified,
by its smaller size, as the “lesser monster,” and is excluded from any
possibility of being the “Pongo,” by the fact that it is black and not dun, to
say nothing of the important circumstance already mentioned that it still
retains the name of “Engeko,” or “Enché-eko,” by which Battell knew it.
In seeking for a specific name for the “Engé-ena,” however, Dr. Savage
wisely avoided the much misused “Pongo”; but finding in the ancient
Periplus of Hanno the word “Gorilla” applied to certain hairy savage
people, discovered by the Carthaginian voyager in an island on the African
coast, he attached the specific name “Gorilla” to his new ape, whence arises
its present well-known appellation. But Dr. Savage, more cautious than
some of his successors, by no means identifies his ape with Hanno’s “wild
men.” He merely says that the latter were “probably one of the species of
the Orang;” and I quite agree with M. Brullé that there is no ground for
identifying the modern “Gorilla” with that of the Carthaginian admiral.
Since the memoir of Savage and Wyman was published, the skeleton of the
Gorilla has been investigated by Professor Owen and by the late Professor
Duvernoy, of the Jardin des Plantes, the latter having further supplied a
valuable account of the muscular system and of many of the other soft

parts; while African missionaries and travellers have confirmed and
expanded the account originally given of the habits of this great man-like
Ape, which has had the singular fortune of being the first to be made known
to the general world and the last to be scientifically investigated.
Two centuries and a half have passed away since Battell told his stories
about the “greater” and the “lesser monsters” to Purchas, and it has taken
nearly that time to arrive at the clear result that there are four distinct kinds
of Anthropoids—in Eastern Asia, the Gibbons and the Orangs; in Western
Africa, the Chimpanzees and the Gorilla.

The man-like Apes, the history of whose discovery has just been detailed,
have certain characters of structure and of distribution in common. Thus
they all have the same number of teeth as man—possessing four incisors,
two canines, four false molars, and six true molars in each jaw, or 32 teeth
in all, in the adult condition; while the milk dentition consists of 20 teeth—
or four incisors, two canines, and four molars in each jaw. They are what
are called catarrhine Apes—that is, their nostrils have a narrow partition
and look downwards; and, furthermore, their arms are always longer than
their legs, the difference being sometimes greater and sometimes less; so
that if the four were arranged in the order of the length of their arms in
proportion to that of their legs, we should have this series—Orang (14⁄9—1),
Gibbon (11⁄4—1), Gorilla (11⁄5—1), Chimpanzee (11⁄16—1). In all, the fore-
limbs are terminated by hands, provided with longer or shorter thumbs;
while the great toe of the foot, always smaller than in Man, is far more
moveable than in him and can be opposed, like a thumb, to the rest of the
foot. None of these apes have tails, and none of them possess the cheek-
pouches common among monkeys. Finally, they are all inhabitants of the
old world.
The Gibbons are the smallest, slenderest, and longest-limbed of the man-
like Apes: their arms are longer in proportion to their bodies than those of
any of the other man-like Apes, so that they can touch the ground when
erect; their hands are longer than their feet, and they are the only
Anthropoids which possess callosities like the lower monkeys. They are

variously coloured. The Orangs have arms which reach to the ankles in the
erect position of the animal; their thumbs and great toes are very short, and
their feet are longer than their hands. They are covered with reddish-brown
hair, and the sides of the face, in adult males, are commonly produced into
two crescentic, flexible excrescences, like fatty tumours. The Chimpanzees
have arms which reach below the knees; they have large thumbs and great
toes, their hands are longer than their feet, and their hair is black, while the
skin of the face is pale. The Gorilla, lastly, has arms which reach to the
middle of the leg, large thumbs and great toes, feet longer than the hands, a
black face, and dark-grey or dun hair.
For the purpose which I have at present in view, it is unnecessary that I
should enter into any further minutiæ respecting the distinctive characters
of the genera and species into which these man-like Apes are divided by
naturalists. Suffice it to say, that the Orangs and the Gibbons constitute the
distinct genera, Simia and Hylobates; while the Chimpanzees and Gorillas
are by some regarded simply as distinct species of one genus, Troglodytes;
by others as distinct genera—Troglodytes being reserved for the
Chimpanzees, and Gorilla for the Engé-ena or Pongo.

Sound knowledge respecting the habits and mode of life of the man-like
Apes has been even more difficult of attainment than correct information
regarding their structure.
Once in a generation, a Wallace may be found physically, mentally, and
morally qualified to wander unscathed through the tropical wilds of
America and of Asia; to form magnificent collections as he wanders; and
withal to think out sagaciously the conclusions suggested by his collections:
but, to the ordinary explorer or collector, the dense forests of equatorial
Asia and Africa, which constitute the favourite habitation of the Orang, the
Chimpanzee, and the Gorilla, present difficulties of no ordinary magnitude:
and the man who risks his life by even a short visit to the malarious shores
of those regions may well be excused if he shrinks from facing the dangers
of the interior; if he contents himself with stimulating the industry of the

better seasoned natives, and collecting and collating the more or less
mythical reports and traditions with which they are too ready to supply him.
In such a manner most of the earlier accounts of the habits of the man-like
Apes originated; and even now a good deal of what passes current must be
admitted to have no very safe foundation. The best information we possess
is that, based almost wholly on direct European testimony, respecting the
Gibbons; the next best evidence relates to the Orangs; while our knowledge
of the habits of the Chimpanzee and the Gorilla stands much in need of
support and enlargement by additional testimony from instructed European
eye-witnesses.
It will therefore be convenient in endeavouring to form a notion of what we
are justified in believing about these animals, to commence with the best
known man-like Apes, the Gibbons and Orangs; and to make use of the
perfectly reliable information respecting them as a sort of criterion of the
probable truth or falsehood of assertions respecting the others.
Of the Gibbons, half a dozen species are found scattered over the Asiatic
islands, Java, Sumatra, Borneo, and through Malacca, Siam, Arracan, and
an uncertain extent of Hindostan, on the main land of Asia. The largest
attain a few inches above three feet in height, from the crown to the heel, so
that they are shorter than the other man-like Apes; while the slenderness of
their bodies renders their mass far smaller in proportion even to this
diminished height.
Dr. Salomon Müller, an accomplished Dutch naturalist, who lived for many
years in the Eastern Archipelago, and to the results of whose personal
experience I shall frequently have occasion to refer, states that the Gibbons
are true mountaineers, loving the slopes and edges of the hills, though they
rarely ascend beyond the limit of the fig-trees. All day long they haunt the
tops of the tall trees; and though, towards evening, they descend in small
troops to the open ground, no sooner do they spy a man than they dart up
the hill-sides, and disappear in the darker valleys.
All observers testify to the prodigious volume of voice possessed by these
animals. According to the writer whom I have just cited, in one of them, the
Siamang, “the voice is grave and penetrating, resembling the sounds gōek,
gōek, gōek, gōek, goek ha ha ha ha haaāāā, and may easily be heard at a

distance of half a league.” While the cry is being uttered, the great
membranous bag under the throat which communicates with the organ of
voice, the so-called “laryngeal sac,” becomes greatly distended, diminishing
again when the creature relapses into silence.
M. Duvaucel, likewise, affirms that the cry of the Siamang may be heard for
miles—making the woods ring again. So Mr. Martin[15] describes the cry of
the agile Gibbon as “overpowering and deafening” in a room, and “from its
strength, well calculated for resounding through the vast forests.” Mr.
Waterhouse, an accomplished musician as well as zoologist, says, “The
Gibbon’s voice is certainly much more powerful than that of any singer I
ever heard.” And yet it is to be recollected that this animal is not half the
height of, and far less bulky in proportion than, a man.
There is good testimony that various species of Gibbon readily take to the
erect posture. Mr. George Bennett,[16] a very excellent observer, in
describing the habits of a male Hylobates syndactylus which remained for
some time in his possession, says: “He invariably walks in the erect posture
when on a level surface; and then the arms either hang down, enabling him
to assist himself with his knuckles; or what is more usual, he keeps his arms
uplifted in nearly an erect position, with the hands pendent ready to seize a
rope, and climb up on the approach of danger or on the obtrusion of
strangers. He walks rather quick in the erect posture, but with a waddling
gait, and is soon run down if, whilst pursued, he has no opportunity of
escaping by climbing.... When he walks in the erect posture he turns the leg
and foot outwards, which occasions him to have a waddling gait and to
seem bow-legged.”
Dr. Burrough states of another Gibbon, the Horlack or Hooluk:
“They walk erect; and when placed on the floor, or in an open field, balance themselves
very prettily, by raising their hands over their head and slightly bending the arm at the wrist
and elbow, and then run tolerably fast, rocking from side to side; and, if urged to greater
speed, they let fall their hands to the ground, and assist themselves forward, rather jumping
than running, still keeping the body, however, nearly erect.”

Somewhat different evidence, however, is given by Dr. Winslow Lewis:[17]
“Their only manner of walking was on their posterior or inferior
extremities, the others being raised upwards to preserve their equilibrium,

as rope-dancers are assisted by long poles at fairs. Their progression was
not by placing one foot before the other, but by simultaneously using both,
as in jumping.” Dr. Salomon Müller also states that the Gibbons progress
upon the ground by a short series of tottering jumps, effected only by the
hind limbs, the body being held altogether upright.

Fig. 8.—A Gibbon (H. pileatus), after Wolf.

But Mr. Martin (l. c. p. 418), who also speaks from direct observation, says
of the Gibbons generally:
“Pre-eminently qualified for arboreal habits, and displaying among the branches amazing
activity, the Gibbons are not so awkward or embarrassed on a level surface as might be

imagined. They walk erect, with a waddling or unsteady gait, but at a quick pace; the
equilibrium of the body requiring to be kept up, either by touching the ground with the
knuckles, first on one side then on the other, or by uplifting the arms so as to poise it. As
with the Chimpanzee, the whole of the narrow, long sole of the foot is placed upon the
ground at once and raised at once, without any elasticity of step.”

After this mass of concurrent and independent testimony, it cannot
reasonably be doubted that the Gibbons commonly and habitually assume
the erect attitude.
But level ground is not the place where these animals can display their very
remarkable and peculiar locomotive powers, and that prodigious activity
which almost tempts one to rank them among flying rather than among
ordinary climbing mammals.
Mr. Martin (l. c. p. 430) has given so excellent and graphic an account of
the movements of a Hylobates agilis, living in the Zoological Gardens, in
1840, that I will quote it in full:
“It is almost impossible to convey in words an idea of the quickness and graceful address
of her movements: they may indeed be termed aerial, as she seems merely to touch in her
progress the branches among which she exhibits her evolutions. In these feats her hands
and arms are the sole organs of locomotion; her body hanging as if suspended by a rope,
sustained by one hand (the right, for example), she launches herself, by an energetic
movement, to a distant branch, which she catches with the left hand; but her hold is less
than momentary: the impulse for the next launch is acquired: the branch then aimed at is
attained by the right hand again, and quitted instantaneously, and so on, in alternate
succession. In this manner spaces of twelve and eighteen feet are cleared, with the greatest
ease and uninterruptedly, for hours together, without the slightest appearance of fatigue
being manifested; and it is evident that, if more space could be allowed, distances very
greatly exceeding eighteen feet would be as easily cleared; so that Duvaucel’s assertion
that he has seen these animals launch themselves from one branch to another, forty feet
asunder, startling as it is, may be well credited. Sometimes, on seizing a branch in her
progress, she will throw herself, by the power of one arm only, completely round it,
making a revolution with such rapidity as almost to deceive the eye, and continue her
progress with undiminished velocity. It is singular to observe how suddenly this Gibbon
can stop, when the impetus given by the rapidity and distance of her swinging leaps would
seem to require a gradual abatement of her movements. In the very midst of her flight a
branch is seized, the body raised, and she is seen, as if by magic, quietly seated on it,
grasping it with her feet. As suddenly she again throws herself into action.
“The following facts will convey some notion of her dexterity and quickness. A live bird
was let loose in her apartment; she marked its flight, made a long swing to a distant branch,
caught the bird with one hand in her passage, and attained the branch with her other hand;
her aim, both at the bird and at the branch, being as successful as if one object only had
engaged her attention. It may be added that she instantly bit off the head of the bird, picked
its feathers, and then threw it down without attempting to eat it.

“On another occasion this animal swung herself from a perch, across a passage at least
twelve feet wide, against a window which it was thought would be immediately broken:
but not so; to the surprise of all, she caught the narrow framework between the panes with
her hand, in an instant attained the proper impetus, and sprang back again to the cage she
had left—a feat requiring not only great strength, but the nicest precision.”

The Gibbons appear to be naturally very gentle, but there is very good
evidence that they will bite severely when irritated—a female Hylobates
agilis having so severely lacerated one man with her long canines, that he
died; while she had injured others so much that, by way of precaution, these
formidable teeth had been filed down; but, if threatened, she would still turn
on her keeper. The Gibbons eat insects, but appear generally to avoid
animal food. A Siamang, however, was seen by Mr. Bennett to seize and
devour greedily a live lizard. They commonly drink by dipping their fingers
in the liquid and then licking them. It is asserted that they sleep in a sitting
posture.
Duvaucel affirms that he has seen the females carry their young to the
waterside and there wash their faces, in spite of resistance and cries. They
are gentle and affectionate in captivity—full of tricks and pettishness, like
spoiled children, and yet not devoid of a certain conscience, as an anecdote,
told by Mr. Bennett (l. c. p. 156), will show. It would appear that his Gibbon
had a peculiar inclination for disarranging things in the cabin. Among these
articles, a piece of soap would especially attract his notice, and for the
removal of this he had been once or twice scolded. “One morning,” says
Mr. Bennett, “I was writing, the ape being present in the cabin, when
casting my eyes towards him, I saw the little fellow taking the soap. I
watched him without his perceiving that I did so: and he occasionally would
cast a furtive glance towards the place where I sat. I pretended to write; he,
seeing me busily occupied, took the soap, and moved away with it in his
paw. When he had walked half the length of the cabin, I spoke quietly,
without frightening him. The instant he found I saw him, he walked back
again, and deposited the soap nearly in the same place from whence he had
taken it. There was certainly something more than instinct in that action: he
evidently betrayed a consciousness of having done wrong both by his first
and last actions—and what is reason if that is not an exercise of it?”

The most elaborate account of the natural history of the Orang-Utan extant,
is that given in the “Verhandelingen over de Natuurlijke Geschiedenis der
Nederlandsche overzeesche Bezittingen (1839-45),” by Dr. Salomon Müller
and Dr. Schlegel, and I shall base what I have to say upon this subject
almost entirely on their statements, adding, here and there, particulars of
interest from the writings of Brooke, Wallace, and others.

Fig. 9.—An adult male Orang-Utan, after Müller and Schlegel.

The Orang-Utan would rarely seem to exceed four feet in height, but the
body is very bulky, measuring two-thirds of the height in circumference.[18]

The Orang-Utan is found only in Sumatra and Borneo, and is common in
neither of these islands—in both of which it occurs always in low, flat
plains, never in the mountains. It loves the densest and most sombre of the
forests, which extend from the sea-shore inland, and thus is found only in
the eastern half of Sumatra, where alone such forests occur, though,
occasionally, it strays over to the western side.
On the other hand, it is generally distributed through Borneo, except in the
mountains, or where the population is dense. In favourable places, the
hunter may, by good fortune, see three or four in a day.
Except in the pairing time, the old males usually live by themselves. The
old females, and the immature males, on the other hand, are often met with
in twos and threes; and the former occasionally have young with them,
though the pregnant females usually separate themselves, and sometimes
remain apart after they have given birth to their offspring. The young
Orangs seem to remain unusually long under their mother’s protection,
probably in consequence of their slow growth. While climbing, the mother
always carries her young against her bosom, the young holding on by his
mother’s hair.[19] At what time of life the Orang-Utan becomes capable of
propagation, and how long the females go with young, is unknown, but it is
probable that they are not adult until they arrive at ten or fifteen years of
age. A female which lived for five years at Batavia, had not attained one-
third the height of the wild females. It is probable that, after reaching adult
years, they go on growing, though slowly, and that they live to forty or fifty
years. The Dyaks tell of old Orangs, which have not only lost all their teeth,
but which find it so troublesome to climb, that they maintain themselves on
windfalls and juicy herbage.
The Orang is sluggish, exhibiting none of that marvellous activity
characteristic of the Gibbons. Hunger alone seems to stir him to exertion,
and when it is stilled he relapses into repose. When the animal sits, it curves
its back and bows its head, so as to look straight down on the ground;
sometimes it holds on with its hands by a higher branch, sometimes lets
them hang phlegmatically down by its side—and in these positions the
Orang will remain, for hours together, in the same spot, almost without
stirring, and only now and then giving utterance to its deep, growling voice.
By day, he usually climbs from one tree-top to another, and only at night

descends to the ground, and if then threatened with danger, he seeks refuge
among the underwood. When not hunted, he remains a long time in the
same locality, and sometimes stops for many days on the same tree—a firm
place among its branches serving him for a bed. It is rare for the Orang to
pass the night in the summit of a large tree, probably because it is too windy
and cold there for him; but, as soon as night draws on, he descends from the
height and seeks out a fit bed in the lower and darker part, or in the leafy
top of a small tree, among which he prefers Nibong Palms, Pandani, or one
of those parasitic Orchids which give the primæval forests of Borneo so
characteristic and striking an appearance. But wherever he determines to
sleep, there he prepares himself a sort of nest: little boughs and leaves are
drawn together round the selected spot, and bent crosswise over one
another; while to make the bed soft, great leaves of Ferns, of Orchids, of
Pandanus fascicularis, Nipa fruticans, &c., are laid over them. Those which
Müller saw, many of them being very fresh, were situated at a height of ten
to twenty-five feet above the ground, and had a circumference, on the
average, of two or three feet. Some were packed many inches thick with
Pandanus leaves; others were remarkable only for the cracked twigs,
which, united in a common centre, formed a regular platform. “The rude
hut,” says Sir James Brooke, “which they are stated to build in the trees,
would be more properly called a seat or nest, for it has no roof or cover of
any sort. The facility with which they form this nest is curious, and I had an
opportunity of seeing a wounded female weave the branches together and
seat herself, within a minute.”
According to the Dyaks, the Orang rarely leaves his bed before the sun is
well above the horizon and has dissipated the mists. He gets up about nine,
and goes to bed again about five; but sometimes not till late in the twilight.
He lies sometimes on his back; or, by way of change, turns on one side or
the other, drawing his limbs up to his body, and resting his head on his
hand. When the night is cold, windy, or rainy, he usually covers his body
with a heap of Pandanus, Nipa, or Fern leaves, like those of which his bed
is made, and he is especially careful to wrap up his head in them. It is this
habit of covering himself up which has probably led to the fable that the
Orang builds huts in the trees.
Although the Orang resides mostly amid the boughs of great trees, during
the daytime, he is very rarely seen squatting on a thick branch, as other

apes, and particularly the Gibbons, do. The Orang, on the contrary, confines
himself to the slender leafy branches, so that he is seen right at the top of
the trees, a mode of life which is closely related to the constitution of his
hinder limbs, and especially to that of his seat. For this is provided with no
callosities, such as are possessed by many of the lower apes, and even by
the Gibbons; and those bones of the pelvis, which are termed the ischia, and
which form the solid framework of the surface on which the body rests in
the sitting posture, are not expanded like those of the apes which possess
callosities, but are more like those of man.

An Orang climbs so slowly and cautiously,[20] as, in this act, to resemble a
man more than an ape, taking great care of his feet, so that injury of them
seems to affect him far more than it does other apes. Unlike the Gibbons,
whose forearms do the greater part of the work, as they swing from branch
to branch, the Orang never makes even the smallest jump. In climbing, he
moves alternately one hand and one foot, or, after having laid fast hold with
the hands, he draws up both feet together. In passing from one tree to
another, he always seeks out a place where the twigs of both come close
together, or interlace. Even when closely pursued, his circumspection is
amazing: he shakes the branches to see if they will bear him, and then
bending an overhanging bough down by throwing his weight gradually
along it, he makes a bridge from the tree he wishes to quit to the next.[21]
On the ground the Orang always goes laboriously and shakily, on all fours.
At starting he will run faster than a man, though he may soon be overtaken.
The very long arms which, when he runs, are but little bent, raise the body
of the Orang remarkably, so that he assumes much the posture of a very old
man bent down by age, and making his way along by the help of a stick. In
walking, the body is usually directed straight forward, unlike the other apes,
which run more or less obliquely; except the Gibbons, who in these, as in so
many other respects, depart remarkably from their fellows.
The Orang cannot put its feet flat on the ground, but is supported upon their
outer edges, the heel resting more on the ground, while the curved toes
partly rest upon the ground by the upper side of their first joint, the two
outermost toes of each foot completely resting on this surface. The hands
are held in the opposite manner, their inner edges serving as the chief
support. The fingers are then bent out in such a manner that their foremost

joints, especially those of the two innermost fingers, rest upon the ground
by their upper sides, while the point of the free and straight thumb serves as
an additional fulcrum.
The Orang never stands on its hind legs, and all the pictures, representing it
as so doing, are as false as the assertion that it defends itself with sticks, and
the like.
The long arms are of especial use, not only in climbing, but in the gathering
of food from boughs to which the animal could not trust his weight. Figs,
blossoms, and young leaves of various kinds, constitute the chief nutriment
of the Orang; but strips of bamboo two or three feet long were found in the
stomach of a male. They are not known to eat living animals.
Although, when taken young, the Orang-Utan soon becomes domesticated,
and indeed seems to court human society, it is naturally a very wild and shy
animal, though apparently sluggish and melancholy. The Dyaks affirm, that
when the old males are wounded with arrows only, they will occasionally
leave the trees and rush raging upon their enemies, whose sole safety lies in
instant flight, as they are sure to be killed if caught.[22]
But, though possessed of immense strength, it is rare for the Orang to
attempt to defend itself, especially when attacked with fire-arms. On such
occasions he endeavours to hide himself, or to escape along the topmost
branches of the trees, breaking off and throwing down the boughs as he
goes. When wounded he betakes himself to the highest attainable point of
the tree, and emits a singular cry, consisting at first of high notes, which at
length deepen into a low roar, not unlike that of a panther. While giving out
the high notes the Orang thrusts out his lips into a funnel shape; but in
uttering the low notes he holds his mouth wide open, and at the same time
the great throat bag, or laryngeal sac, becomes distended.
According to the Dyaks, the only animal the Orang measures his strength
with is the crocodile, who occasionally seizes him on his visits to the water
side. But they say that the Orang is more than a match for his enemy, and
beats him to death, or rips up his throat by pulling the jaws asunder!
Much of what has been here stated was probably derived by Dr. Müller
from the reports of his Dyak hunters; but a large male, four feet high, lived

in captivity, under his observation, for a month, and receives a very bad
character.
“He was a very wild beast,” says Müller, “of prodigious strength, and false
and wicked to the last degree. If any one approached he rose up slowly with
a low growl, fixed his eyes in the direction in which he meant to make his
attack, slowly passed his hand between the bars of his cage, and then
extending his long arm, gave a sudden grip—usually at the face.” He never
tried to bite (though Orangs will bite one another), his great weapons of
offence and defence being his hands.
His intelligence was very great; and Müller remarks, that though the
faculties of the Orang have been estimated too highly, yet Cuvier, had he
seen this specimen, would not have considered its intelligence to be only a
little higher than that of the dog.
His hearing was very acute, but the sense of vision seemed to be less
perfect. The under lip was the great organ of touch, and played a very
important part in drinking, being thrust out like a trough, so as either to
catch the falling rain, or to receive the contents of the half cocoa-nut shell
full of water with which the Orang was supplied, and which, in drinking, he
poured into the trough thus formed.
In Borneo the Orang-Utan of the Malays goes by the name of “Mias”
among the Dyaks, who distinguish several kinds as Mias Pappan, or Zimo,
Mias Kassu, and Mias Rambi. Whether these are distinct species, however,
or whether they are mere races, and how far any of them are identical with
the Sumatran Orang, as Mr. Wallace thinks the Mias Pappan to be, are
problems which are at present undecided; and the variability of these great
apes is so extensive, that the settlement of the question is a matter of great
difficulty. Of the form called “Mias Pappan,” Mr. Wallace[23] observes, “It
is known by its large size, and by the lateral expansion of the face into fatty
protuberances, or ridges, over the temporal muscles, which have been mis-
termed callosities, as they are perfectly soft, smooth, and flexible. Five of
this form, measured by me, varied only from 4 feet 1 inch to 4 feet 2 inches
in height, from the heel to the crown of the head, the girth of the body from
3 feet to 3 feet 71⁄2 inches, and the extent of the outstretched arms from 7
feet 2 inches to 7 feet 6 inches; the width of the face from 10 to 131⁄4 inches.

The colour and length of the hair varied in different individuals, and in
different parts of the same individual; some possessed a rudimentary nail on
the great toe, others none at all; but they otherwise present no external
differences on which to establish even varieties of a species.
“Yet, when we examine the crania of these individuals, we find remarkable
differences of form, proportion, and dimension, no two being exactly alike.
The slope of the profile, and the projection of the muzzle, together with the
size of the cranium, offer differences as decided as those existing between
the most strongly marked forms of the Caucasian and African crania in the
human species. The orbits vary in width and height, the cranial ridge is
either single or double, either much or little developed, and the zygomatic
aperture varies considerably in size. This variation in the proportions of the
crania enables us satisfactorily to explain the marked difference presented
by the single-crested and double-crested skulls, which have been thought to
prove the existence of two large species of Orang. The external surface of
the skull varies considerably in size, as do also the zygomatic aperture and
the temporal muscle; but they bear no necessary relation to each other, a
small muscle often existing with a large cranial surface, and vice versâ.
Now, those skulls which have the largest and strongest jaws and the widest
zygomatic aperture, have the muscles so large that they meet on the crown
of the skull, and deposit the bony ridge which separates them, and which is
the highest in that which has the smallest cranial surface. In those which
combine a large surface with comparatively weak jaws, and small
zygomatic aperture, the muscles, on each side, do not extend to the crown, a
space of from 1 to 2 inches remaining between them, and along their
margins small ridges are formed. Intermediate forms are found, in which
the ridges meet only in the hinder part of the skull. The form and size of the
ridges are therefore independent of age, being sometimes more strongly
developed in the less aged animal. Professor Temminck states that the series
of skulls in the Leyden Museum shows the same result.”
Mr. Wallace observed two male adult Orangs (Mias Kassu of the Dyaks),
however, so very different from any of these that he concludes them to be
specifically distinct; they were respectively 3 feet 81⁄2 inches and 3 feet 91⁄2
inches high, and possessed no sign of the cheek excrescences, but otherwise
resembled the larger kinds. The skull has no crest, but two bony ridges, 13⁄4
inches to 2 inches apart, as in the Simia morio of Professor Owen. The

teeth, however, are immense, equalling or surpassing those of the other
species. The females of both these kinds, according to Mr. Wallace, are
devoid of excrescences, and resemble the smaller males, but are shorter by
11⁄2 to 3 inches, and their canine teeth are comparatively small, subtruncated
and dilated at the base, as in the so-called Simia morio, which is, in all
probability, the skull of a female of the same species as the smaller males.
Both males and females of this smaller species are distinguishable,
according to Mr. Wallace, by the comparatively large size of the middle
incisors of the upper jaw.

So far as I am aware, no one has attempted to dispute the accuracy of the
statements which I have just quoted regarding the habits of the two Asiatic
man-like Apes; and if true, they must be admitted as evidence, that such an
Ape—
1stly, May readily move along the ground in the erect, or semi-erect,
position, and without direct support from its arms.
2ndly, That it may possess an extremely loud voice, so loud as to be readily
heard one or two miles.
3rdly, That it may be capable of great viciousness and violence when
irritated: and this is especially true of adult males.
4thly, That it may build a nest to sleep in.
Such being well-established facts respecting the Asiatic Anthropoids,
analogy alone might justify us in expecting the African species to offer
similar peculiarities, separately or combined; or, at any rate, would destroy
the force of any attempted à priori argument against such direct testimony
as might be adduced in favour of their existence. And, if the organization of
any of the African Apes could be demonstrated to fit it better than either of
its Asiatic allies for the erect position and for efficient attack, there would
be still less reason for doubting its occasional adoption of the upright
attitude or of aggressive proceedings.

From the time of Tyson and Tulpius downwards, the habits of the young
Chimpanzee in a state of captivity have been abundantly reported and
commented upon. But trustworthy evidence as to the manners and customs
of adult anthropoids of this species, in their native woods, was almost
wanting up to the time of the publication of the paper by Dr. Savage, to
which I have already referred; containing notes of the observations which
he made, and of the information which he collected from sources which he
considered trustworthy, while resident at Cape Palmas, at the north-western
limit of the Bight of Benin.
The adult Chimpanzees, measured by Dr. Savage, never exceeded, though
the males may almost attain, five feet in height.
“When at rest, the sitting posture is that generally assumed. They are sometimes seen
standing and walking, but when thus detected, they immediately take to all fours, and flee
from the presence of the observer. Such is their organization that they cannot stand erect,
but lean forward. Hence they are seen, when standing, with the hands clasped over the
occiput, or the lumbar region, which would seem necessary to balance or ease of posture.
“The toes of the adult are strongly flexed and turned inwards, and cannot be perfectly
straightened. In the attempt the skin gathers into thick folds on the back, shewing that the
full expansion of the foot, as is necessary in walking, is unnatural. The natural position is
on all fours, the body anteriorly resting upon the knuckles. These are greatly enlarged, with
the skin protuberant and thickened like the sole of the foot.
“They are expert climbers, as one would suppose from their organization. In their gambols
they swing from limb to limb to a great distance, and leap with astonishing agility. It is not
unusual to see the ‘old folks’ (in the language of an observer) sitting under a tree regaling
themselves with fruit and friendly chat, while their ‘children’ are leaping around them, and
swinging from tree to tree with boisterous merriment.
“As seen here, they cannot be called gregarious, seldom more than five, or ten at most,
being found together. It has been said, on good authority, that they occasionally assemble
in large numbers, in gambols. My informant asserts that he saw once not less than fifty so
engaged; hooting, screaming, and drumming with sticks upon old logs, which is done in
the latter case with equal facility by the four extremities. They do not appear ever to act on
the offensive, and seldom, if ever really, on the defensive. When about to be captured, they
resist by throwing their arms about their opponent, and attempting to draw him into contact
with their teeth.” (Savage, l. c. p. 384.)

With respect to this last point Dr. Savage is very explicit in another place:
“Biting is their principal art of defence. I have seen one man who had been thus severely
wounded in the feet.
“The strong development of the canine teeth in the adult would seem to indicate a
carnivorous propensity; but in no state save that of domestication do they manifest it. At
first they reject flesh, but easily acquire a fondness for it. The canines are early developed,

and evidently designed to act the important part of weapons of defence. When in contact
with man almost the first effort of the animal is—to bite.
“They avoid the abodes of men, and build their habitations in trees. Their construction is
more that of nests than hut, as they have been erroneously termed by some naturalists.
They generally build not far above the ground. Branches or twigs are bent, or partly
broken, and crossed, and the whole supported by the body of a limb or a crotch. Sometimes
a nest will be found near the end of a strong leafy branch twenty or thirty feet from the
ground. One I have lately seen that could not be less than forty feet, and more probably it
was fifty. But this is an unusual height.
“Their dwelling-place is not permanent, but changed in pursuit of food and solitude,
according to the force of circumstances. We more often see them in elevated places; but
this arises from the fact that the low grounds, being more favourable for the natives’ rice-
farms, are the oftener cleared, and hence are almost always wanting in suitable trees for
their nests.... It is seldom that more than one or two nests are seen upon the same tree, or in
the same neighbourhood: five have been found, but it was an unusual circumstance....
“They are very filthy in their habits.... It is a tradition with the natives generally here, that
they were once members of their own tribe: that for their depraved habits they were
expelled from all human society, and, that through an obstinate indulgence of their vile
propensities, they have degenerated into their present state and organization. They are,
however, eaten by them, and when cooked with the oil and pulp of the palm-nut considered
a highly palatable morsel.
“They exhibit a remarkable degree of intelligence in their habits, and, on the part of the
mother, much affection for their young. The second female described was upon a tree when
first discovered, with her mate and two young ones (a male and a female). Her first
impulse was to descend with great rapidity, and make off into the thicket, with her mate
and female offspring. The young male remaining behind, she soon returned to the rescue.
She ascended and took him in her arms, at which moment she was shot, the ball passing
through the forearm of the young one, on its way to the heart of the mother....
“In a recent case, the mother, when discovered, remained upon the tree with her offspring,
watching intently the movements of the hunter. As he took aim, she motioned with her
hand, precisely in the manner of a human being, to have him desist and go away. When the
wound has not proved instantly fatal, they have been known to stop the flow of blood by
pressing with the hand upon the part, and when this did not succeed, to apply leaves and
grass.... When shot, they give a sudden screech, not unlike that of a human being in sudden
and acute distress.”

The ordinary voice of the Chimpanzee, however, is affirmed to be hoarse,
guttural, and not very loud, somewhat like “whoo-whoo” (l. c. p. 365).
The analogy of the Chimpanzee to the Orang, in its nest-building habit and
in the mode of forming its nest, is exceedingly interesting; while, on the
other hand, the activity of this ape, and its tendency to bite, are particulars
in which it rather resembles the Gibbons. In extent of geographical range,
again, the Chimpanzees—which are found from Sierra Leone to Congo—

remind one of the Gibbons, rather than of either of the other man-like Apes;
and it seems not unlikely that, as is the case with the Gibbons, there may be
several species spread over the geographical area of the genus.
The same excellent observer, from whom I have borrowed the preceding
account of the habits of the adult Chimpanzee, published, fifteen years ago,
[24]
an account of the Gorilla, which has, in its most essential points, been
confirmed by subsequent observers, and to which so very little has really
been added, that in justice to Dr. Savage I give it almost in full.
“It should be borne in mind that my account is based upon the statements of the aborigines
of that region (the Gaboon). In this connection, it may also be proper for me to remark, that
having been a missionary resident for several years, studying, from habitual intercourse,
the African mind and character, I felt myself prepared to discriminate and decide upon the
probability of their statements. Besides, being familiar with the history and habits of its
interesting congener (Trog. niger, Geoff.), I was able to separate their accounts of the two
animals, which, having the same locality and a similarity of habit, are confounded in the
minds of the mass, especially as but few—such as traders to the interior and huntsmen—
have ever seen the animal in question.
“The tribe from which our knowledge of the animal is derived, and whose territory forms
its habitat, is the Mpongwe, occupying both banks of the River Gaboon, from its mouth to
some fifty or sixty miles upward....
“If the word ‘Pongo’ be of African origin, it is probably a corruption of the word Mpongwe,
the name of the tribe on the banks of the Gaboon, and hence applied to the region they
inhabit. Their local name for the Chimpanzee is Enché-eko, as near as it can be Anglicized,
from which the common term ‘Jocko’ probably comes. The Mpongwe appellation for its
new congener is Engé-ena, prolonging the sound of the first vowel, and slightly sounding
the second.

Fig. 10.—The Gorilla (after Wolff).

“The habitat of the Engé-ena is the interior of lower Guinea, whilst that of the Enché-eko is
nearer the sea-board.
“Its height is about five feet; it is disproportionately broad across the shoulders, thickly
covered with coarse black hair, which is said to be similar in its arrangement to that of the
Enché-eko; with age it becomes grey, which fact has given rise to the report that both
animals are seen of different colours.
“Head.—The prominent features of the head are, the great width and elongation of the
face, the depth of the molar region, the branches of the lower jaw being very deep and
extending far backward, and the comparative smallness of the cranial portion; the eyes are
very large, and said to be like those of the Enché-eko, a bright hazel; nose broad and flat,
slightly elevated towards the root; the muzzle broad, and prominent lips and chin, with
scattered grey hairs; the under lip highly mobile, and capable of great elongation when the

animal is enraged, then hanging over the chin; skin of the face and ears naked, and of a
dark brown, approaching to black.
“The most remarkable feature of the head is a high ridge, or crest of hair, in the course of
the sagittal suture, which meets posteriorly with a transverse ridge of the same, but less
prominent, running round from the back of one ear to the other. The animal has the power
of moving the scalp freely forward and back, and when enraged is said to contract it
strongly over the brow, thus bringing down the hairy ridge and pointing the hair forward,
so as to present an indescribably ferocious aspect.
“Neck short, thick, and hairy; chest and shoulders very broad, said to be fully double the
size of the Enché-ekos; arms very long, reaching some way below the knee—the forearm
much the shortest; hands very large, the thumbs much larger than the fingers....
“The gait is shuffling; the motion of the body, which is never upright as in man, but bent
forward, is somewhat rolling, or from side to side. The arms being longer than the
Chimpanzee, it does not stoop as much in walking; like that animal, it makes progression
by thrusting its arms forward, resting the hands on the ground, and then giving the body a
half jumping half swinging motion between them. In this act it is said not to flex the
fingers, as does the Chimpanzee, resting on its knuckles, but to extend them, making a
fulcrum of the hand. When it assumes the walking posture, to which it is said to be much
inclined, it balances its huge body by flexing its arms upward.
“They live in bands, but are not so numerous as the Chimpanzees: the females generally
exceed the other sex in number. My informants all agree in the assertion that but one adult
male is seen in a band; that when the young males grow up, a contest takes place for
mastery, and the strongest, by killing and driving out the others, establishes himself as the
head of the community.”

Dr. Savage repudiates the stories about the Gorillas carrying off women and
vanquishing elephants, and then adds:
“Their dwellings, if they may be so called, are similar to those of the Chimpanzee,
consisting simply of a few sticks and leafy branches, supported by the crotches and limbs
of trees: they afford no shelter, and are occupied only at night.

“They are exceedingly ferocious, and always offensive in their habits, never running from
man, as does the Chimpanzee. They are objects of terror to the natives, and are never
encountered by them except on the defensive. The few that have been captured were killed
by elephant-hunters and native traders, as they came suddenly upon them while passing
through the forests.
“It is said that when the male is first seen he gives a terrific yell, that resounds far and wide
through the forest, something like kh—ah! kh—ah! prolonged and shrill. His enormous
jaws are widely opened at each expiration, his under lip hangs over the chin, and the hairy
ridge and scalp are contracted upon the brow, presenting an aspect of indescribable
ferocity.
“The females and young, at the first cry, quickly disappear. He then approaches the enemy
in great fury, pouring out his horrid cries in quick succession. The hunter awaits his
approach with his gun extended: if his aim is not sure, he permits the animal to grasp the
barrel, and as he carries it to his mouth (which is his habit) he fires. Should the gun fail to

go off, the barrel (that of the ordinary
musket, which is thin) is crushed between
his teeth, and the encounter soon proves
fatal to the hunter.
“In the wild state, their habits are in
general like those of the Troglodytes niger,
building their nests loosely in trees, living
on similar fruits, and changing their place
of resort from force of circumstances.”

Dr. Savage’s observations were
confirmed and supplemented by
those of Mr. Ford, who
communicated an interesting paper
on the Gorilla to the Philadelphian Fig. 11.—Gorilla walking (after Wolff).
Academy of Sciences, in 1852.
With respect to the geographical
distribution of this greatest of all the man-like Apes, Mr. Ford remarks:
“This animal inhabits the range of mountains that traverse the interior of Guinea, from the
Cameroon in the north, to Angola in the south, and about 100 miles inland, and called by
the geographers Crystal Mountains. The limit to which this animal extends, either north or
south, I am unable to define. But that limit is doubtless some distance north of this river
[Gaboon]. I was able to certify myself of this fact in a late excursion to the head-waters of
the Mooney (Danger) River, which comes into the sea some sixty miles from this place. I
was informed (credibly, I think) that they were numerous among the mountains in which
that river rises, and far north of that.
“In the south, this species extends to the Congo River, as I am told by native traders who
have visited the coast between the Gaboon and that river. Beyond that, I am not informed.
This animal is only found at a distance from the coast in most cases, and, according to my
best information, approaches it nowhere so nearly as on the south side of this river, where
they have been found within ten miles of the sea. This, however, is only of late occurrence.
I am informed by some of the oldest Mpongwe men that formerly he was only found on the
sources of the river, but that at present he may be found within half-a-day’s walk of its
mouth. Formerly he inhabited the mountainous ridge where Bushmen alone inhabited, but
now he boldly approaches the Mpongwe plantations. This is doubtless the reason of the
scarcity of information in years past, as the opportunities for receiving a knowledge of the
animal have not been wanting; traders having for one hundred years frequented this river,
and specimens, such as have been brought here within a year, could not have been
exhibited without having attracted the attention of the most stupid.”

One specimen Mr. Ford examined weighed 170 lbs., without the thoracic, or
pelvic, viscera, and measured four feet four inches round the chest. This
writer describes so minutely and graphically the onslaught of the Gorilla—
though he does not for a moment pretend to have witnessed the scene—that

I am tempted to give this part of his paper in full, for comparison with other
narratives:
“He always rises to his feet when making an attack, though he approaches his antagonist in
a stooping posture.
“Though he never lies in wait, yet, when he hears, sees, or scents a man, he immediately
utters his characteristic cry, prepares for an attack, and always acts on the offensive. The
cry he utters resembles a grunt more than a growl, and is similar to the cry of the
Chimpanzee, when irritated, but vastly louder. It is said to be audible at a great distance.
His preparation consists in attending the females and young ones, by whom he is usually
accompanied, to a little distance. He, however, soon returns, with his crest erect and
projecting forward, his nostrils dilated, and his under-lip thrown down; at the same time
uttering his characteristic yell, designed, it would seem, to terrify his antagonist. Instantly,
unless he is disabled by a well-directed shot, he makes an onset, and, striking his
antagonist with the palm of his hands, or seizing him with a grasp from which there is no
escape, he dashes him upon the ground, and lacerates him with his tusks.
“He is said to seize a musket, and instantly crush the barrel between his teeth.... This
animal’s savage nature is very well shewn by the implacable desperation of a young one
that was brought here. It was taken very young, and kept four months, and many means
were used to tame it; but it was incorrigible, so that it bit me an hour before it died.”

Mr. Ford discredits the house-building and elephant-driving stories, and
says that no well-informed natives believe them. They are tales told to
children.
I might quote other testimony to a similar effect, but, as it appears to me,
less carefully weighed and sifted, from the letters of MM. Franquet and
Gautier Laboullay, appended to the memoir of M. I. G. St. Hilaire, which I
have already cited.
Bearing in mind what is known regarding the Orang and the Gibbon, the
statements of Dr. Savage and Mr. Ford do not appear to me to be justly open
to criticism on à priori grounds. The Gibbons, as we have seen, readily
assume the erect posture, but the Gorilla is far better fitted by its
organization for that attitude than are the Gibbons: if the laryngeal pouches
of the Gibbons, as is very likely, are important in giving volume to a voice
which can be heard for half a league, the Gorilla, which has similar sacs,
more largely developed, and whose bulk is fivefold that of a Gibbon, may
well be audible for twice that distance. If the Orang fights with its hands,
the Gibbons and Chimpanzees with their teeth, the Gorilla may, probably
enough, do either or both; nor is there anything to be said against either

Chimpanzee or Gorilla building a nest, when it is proved that the Orang-
Utan habitually performs that feat.
With all this evidence, now ten to fifteen years old, before the world, it is
not a little surprising that the assertions of a recent traveller, who, so far as
the Gorilla is concerned, really does very little more than repeat, on his own
authority, the statements of Savage and of Ford, should have met with so
much and such bitter opposition. If subtraction be made of what was known
before, the sum and substance of what M. Du Chaillu has affirmed as a
matter of his own observation respecting the Gorilla, is, that, in advancing
to the attack, the great brute beats his chest with his fists. I confess I see
nothing very improbable, or very much worth disputing about, in this
statement.
With respect to the other man-like Apes of Africa, M. Du Chaillu tells us
absolutely nothing, of his own knowledge, regarding the common
Chimpanzee; but he informs us of a bald-headed species or variety, the
nschiego mbouve, which builds itself a shelter, and of another rare kind with
a comparatively small face, large facial angle, and peculiar note, resembling
“Kooloo.”
As the Orang shelters itself with a rough coverlet of leaves, and the
common Chimpanzee, according to that eminently trustworthy observer Dr.
Savage, makes a sound like “Whoo-whoo,”—the grounds of the summary
repudiation with which M. Du Chaillu’s statements on these matters have
been met is not obvious.
If I have abstained from quoting M. Du Chaillu’s work, then, it is not
because I discern any inherent improbability in his assertions respecting the
man-like Apes; nor from any wish to throw suspicion on his veracity; but
because, in my opinion, so long as his narrative remains in its present state
of unexplained and apparently inexplicable confusion, it has no claim to
original authority respecting any subject whatsoever.
It may be truth, but it is not evidence.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Regnum Congo: hoc est Vera Descriptio Regni Africani quod tam ab
incolis quam Lusitanis Congus Appellatur, per Philippum Pigafettam, olim ex
Edoardo Lopez acroamatis lingua Italica excerpta, num Latio sermone donata ab
August. Cassiod. Reinio. Iconibus et imaginibus rerum memorabilium quasi
vivis, opera et industria Joan. Theodori et Joan. Israelis de Bry, fratrum exornata.
Francofurti, mdxcviii.
[2] “Except this that their legges had no calves.”—[Ed. 1626.] And in a marginal
note, “These great apes are called Pongo’s.”
[3] Purchas’ note.—Cape Negro is in 16 degrees south of the line.
[4] Purchas’ marginal note, p. 982:—“The Pongo a giant ape. He told me in
conference with him, that one of these Pongoes tooke a negro boy of his which
lived a moneth with them. For they hurt not those which they surprise at
unawares, except they look on them; which he avoyded. He said their highth was
like a man’s, but their bignesse twice as great. I saw the negro boy. What the
other monster should be he hath forgotten to relate; and these papers came to my
hand since his death, which, otherwise, in my often conferences, I might have
learned. Perhaps he meaneth the Pigmy Pongo killers mentioned.”
[5] Archives du Museum, tome x.
[6] I am indebted to Dr. Wright, of Cheltenham, whose paleontological labours
are so well known, for bringing this interesting relic to my knowledge. Tyson’s
granddaughter, it appears, married Dr. Allardyce, a physician of repute in
Cheltenham, and brought, as part of her dowry, the skeleton of the “Pygmie.” Dr.
Allardyce presented it to the Cheltenham Museum, and, through the good offices
of my friend Dr. Wright, the authorities of the Museum have permitted me to
borrow, what is, perhaps, its most remarkable ornament.
[7] “Mandrill” seems to signify a “man-like ape,” the word “Drill” or “Dril”
having been anciently employed in England to denote an Ape or Baboon. Thus
in the fifth edition of Blount’s “Glossographia, or a Dictionary interpreting the
hard words of whatsoever language now used in our refined English tongue ...
very useful for all such as desire to understand what they read,” published in
1681, I find, “Dril—a stone-cutter’s tool wherewith he bores little holes in
marble, &c. Also a large overgrown Ape and Baboon, so called.” “Drill” is used
in the same sense in Charleton’s “Onomasticon Zoicon,” 1668. The singular
etymology of the word given by Buffon seems hardly a probable one.
[8] Histoire Naturelle, Suppl. tome 7ème, 1789.
[9] Camper, Œuvres, i. p. 56.
[10] Verhandelingen van het Bataviaasch Genootschap. Tweede Deel. Derde
Druk. 1826.
[11] “Briefe des Herrn v. Wurmb und des H. Baron von Wollzogen. Gotha,
1794.”
[12] See Blumenbach, “Abbildungen Naturhistorichen Gegenstände,” No. 12,
1810; and Tilesius, “Naturhistoriche Früchte der ersten Kaiserlich-Russischen
Erdumsegelung,” p. 115, 1813.

[13] Speaking broadly and without prejudice to the question, whether there be
more than one species of Orang.
[14] See “Observations on the external characters and habits of the Troglodytes
niger, by Thomas N. Savage, M.D., and on its organization, by Jeffries Wyman,
M.D.,” Boston Journal of Natural History, vol. iv., 1843-4; and “External
characters, habits, and osteology of Troglodytes Gorilla,” by the same authors,
ibid., vol. v., 1847.
[15] “Man and Monkies,” p. 423.
[16] “Wanderings in New South Wales,” vol. ii. chap. viii., 1834.
[17] Boston Journal of Natural History, vol. i., 1834.
[18] The largest Orang-Utan, cited by Temminck, measured, when standing
upright, 4 ft.; but he mentions having just received news of the capture of an
Orang 5 ft. 3 in. high. Schlegel and Müller say that their largest old male
measured, upright, 1.25 Netherlands “el”; and from the crown to the end of the
toes, 1.5 el; the circumference of the body being about 1 el. The largest old
female was 1.09 el high, when standing. The adult skeleton in the College of
Surgeons’ Museum, if set upright, would stand 3 ft. 6-8 in. from crown to sole.
Dr. Humphry gives 3 ft. 8 in. as the mean height of two Orangs. Of seventeen
Orangs examined by Mr. Wallace, the largest was 4 ft. 2 in. high, from the heel
to the crown of the head. Mr. Spencer St. John, however, in his “Life in the
Forests of the Far East,” tells us of an Orang of “5 ft. 2 in., measuring fairly from
the head to the heel,” 15 in. across the face, and 12 in. round the wrist. It does
not appear, however, that Mr. St. John measured this Orang himself.
[19] See Mr. Wallace’s account of an infant “Orang-utan,” in the “Annals of
Natural History” for 1856. Mr. Wallace provided his interesting charge with an
artificial mother of buffalo-skin, but the cheat was too successful. The infant’s
entire experience led it to associate teats with hair, and feeling the latter, it spent
its existence in vain endeavours to discover the former.
[20] “They are the slowest and least active of all the monkey tribe, and their
motions are surprisingly awkward and uncouth.”—Sir James Brooke, in the
“Proceedings of the Zoological Society,” 1841.
[21] Mr. Wallace’s account of the progression of the Orang almost exactly
corresponds with this.
[22] Sir James Brooke, in a letter to Mr. Waterhouse, published in the
proceedings of the Zoological Society for 1841, says:—“On the habits of the
Orangs, as far as I have been able to observe them, I may remark that they are as
dull and slothful as can well be conceived, and on no occasion, when pursuing
them, did they move so fast as to preclude my keeping pace with them easily
through a moderately clear forest; and even when obstructions below (such as
wading up to the neck) allowed them to get away some distance, they were sure
to stop and allow me to come up. I never observed the slightest attempt at
defence, and the wood which sometimes rattled about our ears was broken by
their weight, and not thrown, as some persons represent. If pushed to extremity,
however, the Pappan could not be otherwise than formidable, and one

unfortunate man, who, with a party, was trying to catch a large one alive, lost
two of his fingers, besides being severely bitten on the face, whilst the animal
finally beat off his pursuers and escaped.”
Mr. Wallace, on the other hand, affirms that he has several times observed them
throwing down branches when pursued. “It is true he does not throw them at a
person, but casts them down vertically; for it is evident that a bough cannot be
thrown to any distance from the top of a lofty tree. In one case a female Mias, on
a durian tree, kept up for at least ten minutes a continuous shower of branches
and of the heavy, spined fruits, as large as 32-pounders, which most effectually
kept us clear of the tree she was on. She could be seen breaking them off and
throwing them down with every appearance of rage, uttering at intervals a loud
pumping grunt, and evidently meaning mischief.”—“On the Habits of the
Orang-Utan,” Annals of Nat. History, 1856. This statement, it will be observed,
is quite in accordance with that contained in the letter of the Resident Palm
quoted above (p. 16).
[23] On the Orang-Utan, or Mias of Borneo, Annals of Natural History, 1856.
[24] Notice of the external characters and habits of Troglodytes Gorilla. Boston
Journal of Natural History, 1847.

II

ON THE RELATIONS OF MAN TO THE
LOWER ANIMALS.
Multis videri poterit, majorem esse differentiam Simiæ et Hominis, quam diei et noctis;
verum tamen hi, comparatione instituta inter summos Europæ Heroës et Hottentottos ad
Caput bonæ spei degentes, difficillime sibi persuadebunt, has eosdem habere natales; vel si
virginem nobilem aulicam, maxime comtam et humanissimam, conferre vellent cum
homine sylvestri et sibi relicto, vix augurari possent, hunc et illam ejusdem esse speciei.—
Linnæi Amœnitates Acad. “Anthropomorpha.”

The question of questions for mankind—the problem which underlies all
others, and is more deeply interesting than any other—is the ascertainment
of the place which Man occupies in nature and of his relations to the
universe of things. Whence our race has come; what are the limits of our
power over nature, and of nature’s power over us; to what goal we are
tending; are the problems which present themselves anew and with
undiminished interest to every man born into the world. Most of us,
shrinking from the difficulties and dangers which beset the seeker after
original answers to these riddles, are contented to ignore them altogether, or
to smother the investigating spirit under the featherbed of respected and
respectable tradition. But, in every age, one or two restless spirits, blessed
with that constructive genius, which can only build on a secure foundation,
or cursed with the mere spirit of scepticism, are unable to follow in the
well-worn and comfortable track of their forefathers and contemporaries,
and unmindful of thorns and stumbling-blocks, strike out into paths of their
own. The sceptics end in the infidelity which asserts the problem to be
insoluble, or in the atheism which denies the existence of any orderly
progress and governance of things: the men of genius propound solutions
which grow into systems of Theology or of Philosophy, or veiled in musical
language which suggests more than it asserts, take the shape of the Poetry
of an epoch.

Each such answer to the great question, invariably asserted by the followers
of its propounder, if not by himself, to be complete and final, remains in
high authority and esteem, it may be for one century, or it may be for
twenty: but, as invariably, Time proves each reply to have been a mere
approximation to the truth—tolerable chiefly on account of the ignorance of
those by whom it was accepted, and wholly intolerable when tested by the
larger knowledge of their successors.
In a well-worn metaphor, a parallel is drawn between the life of man and
the metamorphosis of the caterpillar into the butterfly; but the comparison
may be more just as well as more novel, if for its former term we take the
mental progress of the race. History shows that the human mind, fed by
constant accessions of knowledge, periodically grows too large for its
theoretical coverings, and bursts them asunder to appear in new
habiliments, as the feeding and growing grub, at intervals, casts its too
narrow skin and assumes another, itself but temporary. Truly the imago state
of Man seems to be terribly distant, but every moult is a step gained, and of
such there have been many.
Since the revival of learning, whereby the Western races of Europe were
enabled to enter upon that progress towards true knowledge, which was
commenced by the philosophers of Greece, but was almost arrested in
subsequent long ages of intellectual stagnation, or, at most, gyration, the
human larva has been feeding vigorously, and moulting in proportion. A
skin of some dimension was cast in the 16th century, and another towards
the end of the 18th, while, within the last fifty years, the extraordinary
growth of every department of physical science has spread among us mental
food of so nutritious and stimulating a character that a new ecdysis seems
imminent. But this is a process not unusually accompanied by many throes
and some sickness and debility, or, it may be, by graver disturbances; so
that every good citizen must feel bound to facilitate the process, and even if
he have nothing but a scalpel to work withal, to ease the cracking
integument to the best of his ability.
In this duty lies my excuse for the publication of these essays. For it will be
admitted that some knowledge of man’s position in the animate world is an
indispensable preliminary to the proper understanding of his relations to the
universe—and this again resolves itself, in the long run, into an inquiry into

the nature and the closeness of the ties which connect him with those
singular creatures whose history[25] has been sketched in the preceding
pages.
The importance of such an inquiry is indeed intuitively manifest. Brought
face to face with these blurred copies of himself, the least thoughtful of men
is conscious of a certain shock, due perhaps, not so much to disgust at the
aspect of what looks like an insulting caricature, as to the awakening of a
sudden and profound mistrust of time-honoured theories and strongly-
rooted prejudices regarding his own position in nature, and his relations to
the under-world of life; while that which remains a dim suspicion for the
unthinking, becomes a vast argument, fraught with the deepest
consequences, for all who are acquainted with the recent progress of the
anatomical and physiological sciences.
I now propose briefly to unfold that argument, and to set forth, in a form
intelligible to those who possess no special acquaintance with anatomical
science, the chief facts upon which all conclusions respecting the nature and
the extent of the bonds which connect man with the brute world must be
based: I shall then indicate the one immediate conclusion which, in my
judgment, is justified by those facts, and I shall finally discuss the bearing
of that conclusion upon the hypotheses which have been entertained
respecting the Origin of Man.
The facts to which I would first direct the reader’s attention, though ignored
by many of the professed instructors of the public mind, are easy of
demonstration and are universally agreed to by men of science; while their
significance is so great, that whoso has duly pondered over them will, I
think, find little to startle him in the other revelations of Biology. I refer to
those facts which have been made known by the study of Development.
It is a truth of very wide, if not of universal, application, that every living
creature commences its existence under a form different from, and simpler
than, that which it eventually attains.
The oak is a more complex thing than the little rudimentary plant contained
in the acorn; the caterpillar is more complex than the egg; the butterfly than
the caterpillar; and each of these beings, in passing from its rudimentary to
its perfect condition, runs through a series of changes, the sum of which is

called its Development. In the higher animals these changes are extremely
complicated; but, within the last half-century, the labours of such men as
Von Baer, Rathke, Reichert, Bischof, and Remak have almost completely
unravelled them, so that the successive stages of development which are
exhibited by a Dog, for example, are now as well known to the
embryologist as are the steps of the metamorphosis of the silkworm moth to
the school-boy. It will be useful to consider with attention the nature and the
order of the stages of canine development, as an example of the process in
the higher animals generally.
The Dog, like all animals, save the very lowest (and further inquiries may
not improbably remove the apparent exception), commences its existence as
an egg: as a body which is, in every sense, as much an egg as that of a hen,
but is devoid of that accumulation of nutritive matter which confers upon
the bird’s egg its exceptional size and domestic utility; and wants the shell,
which would not only be useless to an animal incubated within the body of
its parent, but would cut it off from access to the source of that nutriment
which the young creature requires, but which the minute egg of the
mammal does not contain within itself.
The Dog’s egg is, in fact, a little spheroidal bag (Fig. 12), formed of a
delicate transparent membrane called the vitelline membrane, and about 1⁄130
to 1⁄120th an inch in diameter. It contains a mass of viscid nutritive matter—
the “yelk”—within which is inclosed a second much more delicate
spheroidal bag, called the “germinal vesicle” (a). In this, lastly, lies a more
solid rounded body, termed the “germinal spot” (b).

Fig. 12.—A. Egg of the Dog, with the vitelline membrane burst, so as to give exit to the yelk,
the germinal vesicle (a), and its included spot (b).
B. C. D. E. F. Successive changes of the yelk indicated in the text. After Bischoff.

The egg, or “Ovum,” is originally formed within a gland, from which, in
due season, it becomes detached, and passes into the living chamber fitted
for its protection and maintenance during the protracted process of
gestation. Here, when subjected to the required conditions, this minute and
apparently insignificant particle of living matter becomes animated by a
new and mysterious activity. The germinal vesicle and spot cease to be
discernible (their precise fate being one of the yet unsolved problems of
embryology), but the yelk becomes circumferentially indented, as if an
invisible knife had been drawn round it, and thus appears divided into two
hemispheres (Fig. 12, C).
By the repetition of this process in various planes, these hemispheres
become subdivided, so that four segments are produced (D); and these, in
like manner, divide and subdivide again, until the whole yelk is converted
into a mass of granules, each of which consists of a minute spheroid of
yelk-substance, inclosing a central particle, the so-called “nucleus” (F).
Nature, by this process, has attained much the same result as that at which a
human artificer arrives by his operations in a brickfield. She takes the rough

plastic material of the yelk and breaks it up into well-shaped, tolerably
even-sized masses, handy for building up into any part of the living edifice.
Next, the mass of organic bricks, or “cells” as they are technically called,
thus formed, acquires an orderly arrangement, becoming converted into a
hollow spheroid with double walls. Then, upon one side of this spheroid,
appears a thickening, and, by and bye, in the centre of the area of
thickening, a straight shallow groove (Fig. 13, A) marks the central line of
the edifice which is to be raised, or, in other words, indicates the position of
the middle line of the body of the future dog. The substance bounding the
groove on each side next rises up into a fold, the rudiment of the side wall
of that long cavity, which will eventually lodge the spinal marrow and the
brain; and in the floor of this chamber appears a solid cellular cord, the so-
called “notochord.” One end of the inclosed cavity dilates to form the head
(Fig. 13, B), the other remains narrow, and eventually becomes the tail; the
side walls of the body are fashioned out of the downward continuation of
the walls of the groove; and from them, by and bye, grow out little buds
which, by degrees, assume the shape of limbs. Watching the fashioning
process stage by stage, one is forcibly reminded of the modeller in clay.
Every part, every organ, is at first, as it were, pinched up rudely, and
sketched out in the rough; then shaped more accurately; and only, at last,
receives the touches which stamp its final character.
Thus, at length, the young puppy assumes such a form as is shown in Fig.
13, C. In this condition it has a disproportionately large head, as dissimilar
to that of a dog as the bud-like limbs are unlike his legs.
The remains of the yelk, which have not yet been applied to the nutrition
and growth of the young animal, are contained in a sac attached to the
rudimentary intestine, and termed the yelk-sac, or “umbilical vesicle.” Two
membranous bags, intended to subserve respectively the protection and
nutrition of the young creature, have been developed from the skin and
from the under and hinder surface of the body; the former, the so-called
“amnion,” is a sac filled with fluid, which invests the whole body of the
embryo, and plays the part of a sort of water-bed for it; the other, termed the
“allantois,” grows out, loaded with blood-vessels, from the ventral region,
and eventually applying itself to the walls of the cavity, in which the
developing organism is contained, enables these vessels to become the

channel by which the stream of nutriment, required to supply the wants of
the offspring, is furnished to it by the parent.

Fig. 13.—A. Earliest rudiment of the Dog. B. Rudiment further advanced, showing the
foundations of the head, tail, and vertebral column. C. The very young puppy, with attached
ends of the yelk-sac and allantois, and invested in the amnion.

The structure which is developed by the interlacement of the vessels of the
offspring with those of the parent, and by means of which the former is
enabled to receive nourishment and to get rid of effete matters, is termed the
“Placenta.”
It would be tedious, and it is unnecessary for my present purpose, to trace
the process of development further; suffice it to say, that, by a long and
gradual series of changes, the rudiment here depicted and described
becomes a puppy, is born, and then, by still slower and less perceptible
steps, passes into the adult Dog.
There is not much apparent resemblance between a barndoor Fowl and the
Dog who protects the farm-yard. Nevertheless the student of development
finds, not only that the chick commences its existence as an egg, primarily
identical, in all essential respects, with that of the Dog, but that the yelk of
this egg undergoes division—that the primitive groove arises, and that the

contiguous parts of the germ are fashioned, by precisely similar methods,
into a young chick, which, at one stage of its existence, is so like the
nascent Dog, that ordinary inspection would hardly distinguish the two.

The history of the development of any other vertebrate animal, Lizard,
Snake, Frog, or Fish, tells the same story. There is always, to begin with, an
egg having the same essential structure as that of the Dog:—the yelk of that
egg always undergoes division, or “segmentation” as it is often called: the
ultimate products of that segmentation constitute the building materials for
the body of the young animal; and this is built up round a primitive groove,
in the floor of which a notochord is developed. Furthermore, there is a
period in which the young of all these animals resemble one another, not
merely in outward form, but in all essentials of structure, so closely, that the
differences between them are inconsiderable, while, in their subsequent
course, they diverge more and more widely from one another. And it is a
general law, that, the more closely any animals resemble one another in
adult structure, the longer and the more intimately do their embryos
resemble one another: so that, for example, the embryos of a Snake and of a
Lizard remain like one another longer than do those of a Snake and of a
Bird; and the embryo of a Dog and of a Cat remain like one another for a
far longer period than do those of a Dog and a Bird; or of a Dog and an
Opossum; or even than those of a Dog and a Monkey.
Thus the study of development affords a clear test of closeness of structural
affinity, and one turns with impatience to inquire what results are yielded by
the study of the development of Man. Is he something apart? Does he
originate in a totally different way from Dog, Bird, Frog, and Fish, thus
justifying those who assert him to have no place in nature and no real
affinity with the lower world of animal life? Or does he originate in a
similar germ, pass through the same slow and gradually progressive
modifications,—depend on the same contrivances for protection and
nutrition, and finally enter the world by the help of the same mechanism?
The reply is not doubtful for a moment, and has not been doubtful any time
these thirty years. Without question, the mode of origin and the early stages
of the development of man are identical with those of the animals

immediately below him in the scale:—without a doubt, in these respects, he
is far nearer the Apes, than the Apes are to the Dog.
The Human ovum is about 1⁄125 of an inch in diameter, and might be
described in the same terms as that of the Dog, so that I need only refer to
the figure illustrative (14 A.) of its structure. It leaves the organ in which it
is formed in a similar fashion and enters the organic chamber prepared for
its reception in the same way, the conditions of its development being in all
respects the same. It has not yet been possible (and only by some rare
chance can it ever be possible) to study the human ovum in so early a
developmental stage as that of yelk division, but there is every reason to
conclude that the changes it undergoes are identical with those exhibited by
the ova of other vertebrated animals; for the formative materials of which
the rudimentary human body is composed, in the earliest conditions in
which it has been observed, are the same as those of other animals. Some of
these earliest stages are figured below and, as will be seen, they are strictly
comparable to the very early states of the Dog; the marvellous
correspondence between the two which is kept up, even for some time, as
development advances, becoming apparent by the simple comparison of the
figures with those on page 58.
Indeed, it is very long before the body of the young human being can be
readily discriminated from that of the young puppy; but, at a tolerably early
period, the two become distinguishable by the different form of their
adjuncts, the yelk-sac and the allantois. The former, in the Dog, becomes
long and spindle-shaped, while in Man it remains spherical; the latter, in the
Dog, attains an extremely large size, and the vascular processes which are
developed from it and eventually give rise to the formation of the placenta
(taking root, as it were, in the parental organism, so as to draw nourishment
therefrom, as the root of a tree extracts it from the soil) are arranged in an
encircling zone, while in Man, the allantois remains comparatively small,
and its vascular rootlets are eventually restricted to one disk-like spot.
Hence, while the placenta of the Dog is like a girdle, that of Man has the
cake-like form, indicated by the name of the organ.

Fig. 14.—A. Human ovum (after Kölliker). a. germinal vesicle. b. germinal spot.
B. A very early condition of Man, with yelk-sac, allantois, and amnion (original).
C. A more advanced stage (after Kölliker), compare Fig. 13, C.

But, exactly in those respects in which the developing Man differs from the
Dog, he resembles the ape, which, like man, has a spheroidal yelk-sac and a
discoidal—sometimes partially lobed—placenta.
So that it is only quite in the later stages of development that the young
human being presents marked differences from the young ape, while the
latter departs as much from the dog in its development, as the man does.
Startling as the last assertion may appear to be, it is demonstrably true, and
it alone appears to me sufficient to place beyond all doubt the structural
unity of man with the rest of the animal world, and more particularly and
closely with the apes.

Thus, identical in the physical processes by which he originates—identical
in the early stages of his formation—identical in the mode of his nutrition
before and after birth, with the animals which lie immediately below him in
the scale—Man, if his adult and perfect structure be compared with theirs,
exhibits, as might be expected, a marvellous likeness of organization. He

resembles them as they resemble one another—he differs from them as they
differ from one another.—And, though these differences and resemblances
cannot be weighed and measured, their value may be readily estimated; the
scale or standard of judgment, touching that value, being afforded and
expressed by the system of classification of animals now current among
zoologists.
A careful study of the resemblances and differences presented by animals
has, in fact, led naturalists to arrange them into groups, or assemblages, all
the members of each group presenting a certain amount of definable
resemblance, and the number of points of similarity being smaller as the
group is larger and vice versâ. Thus, all creatures which agree only in
presenting the few distinctive marks of animality form the “Kingdom”
Animalia. The numerous animals which agree only in possessing the
special characters of Vertebrates form one “Sub-kingdom” of this Kingdom.
Then the Sub-kingdom Vertebrata is subdivided into the five “Classes,”
Fishes, Amphibians, Reptiles, Birds, and Mammals, and these into smaller
groups called “Orders”; these into “Families” and “Genera”; while the last
are finally broken up into the smallest assemblages, which are distinguished
by the possession of constant, not-sexual, characters. These ultimate groups
are Species.
Every year tends to bring about a greater uniformity of opinion throughout
the zoological world as to the limits and characters of these groups, great
and small. At present, for example, no one has the least doubt regarding the
characters of the classes Mammalia, Aves, or Reptilia; nor does the question
arise whether any thoroughly well-known animal should be placed in one
class or the other. Again, there is a very general agreement respecting the
characters and limits of the orders of Mammals, and as to the animals which
are structurally necessitated to take a place in one or another order.
No one doubts, for example, that the Sloth and the Ant-eater, the Kangaroo
and the Opossum, the Tiger and the Badger, the Tapir and the Rhinoceros,
are respectively members of the same orders. These successive pairs of
animals may, and some do, differ from one another immensely, in such
matters as the proportions and structure of their limbs; the number of their
dorsal and lumbar vertebræ; the adaptation of their frames to climbing,
leaping, or running; the number and form of their teeth; and the characters

of their skulls and of the contained brain. But, with all these differences,
they are so closely connected in all the more important and fundamental
characters of their organization, and so distinctly separated by these same
characters from other animals, that zoologists find it necessary to group
them together as members of one order. And if any new animal were
discovered, and were found to present no greater difference from the
Kangaroo and the Opossum, for example, than these animals do from one
another, the zoologist would not only be logically compelled to rank it in
the same order with these, but he would not think of doing otherwise.
Bearing this obvious course of zoological reasoning in mind, let us
endeavour for a moment to disconnect our thinking selves from the mask of
humanity; let us imagine ourselves scientific Saturnians, if you will, fairly
acquainted with such animals as now inhabit the Earth, and employed in
discussing the relations they bear to a new and singular “erect and
featherless biped,” which some enterprising traveller, overcoming the
difficulties of space and gravitation, has brought from that distant planet for
our inspection, well preserved, may be, in a cask of rum. We should all, at
once, agree upon placing him among the mammalian vertebrates; and his
lower jaw, his molars, and his brain, would leave no room for doubting the
systematic position of the new genus among those mammals, whose young
are nourished during gestation by means of a placenta, or what are called
the “placental mammals.”
Further, the most superficial study would at once convince us that, among
the orders of placental mammals, neither the Whales nor the hoofed
creatures, nor the Sloths and Ant-eaters, nor the carnivorous Cats, Dogs,
and Bears, still less the Rodent Rats and Rabbits, or the Insectivorous
Moles and Hedgehogs, or the Bats, could claim our “Homo” as one of
themselves.
There would remain then, but one order for comparison, that of the Apes
(using that word in its broadest sense), and the question for discussion
would narrow itself to this—is Man so different from any of these Apes that
he must form an order by himself? Or does he differ less from them than
they differ from one another, and hence must take his place in the same
order with them?

Being happily free from all real, or imaginary, personal interest in the
results of the inquiry thus set afoot, we should proceed to weigh the
arguments on one side and on the other, with as much judicial calmness as
if the question related to a new Opossum. We should endeavour to
ascertain, without seeking either to magnify or diminish them, all the
characters by which our new Mammal differed from the Apes; and if we
found that these were of less structural value, than those which distinguish
certain members of the Ape order from others universally admitted to be of
the same order, we should undoubtedly place the newly discovered tellurian
genus with them.
I now proceed to detail the facts which seem to me to leave us no choice but
to adopt the last mentioned course.

It is quite certain that the Ape which most nearly approaches man, in the
totality of its organization, is either the Chimpanzee or the Gorilla; and as it
makes no practical difference, for the purposes of my present argument,
which is selected for comparison, on the one hand, with Man, and on the
other hand, with the rest of the Primates,[26] I shall select the latter (so far as
its organization is known)—as a brute now so celebrated in prose and verse,
that all must have heard of him, and have formed some conception of his
appearance. I shall take up as many of the most important points of
difference between man and this remarkable creature, as the space at my
disposal will allow me to discuss, and the necessities of the argument
demand; and I shall inquire into the value and magnitude of these
differences, when placed side by side with those which separate the Gorilla
from other animals of the same order.
In the general proportions of the body and limbs there is a remarkable
difference between the Gorilla and Man, which at once strikes the eye. The
Gorilla’s brain-case is smaller, its trunk larger, its lower limbs shorter, its
upper limbs longer in proportion than those of Man.
I find that the vertebral column of a full-grown Gorilla, in the Museum of
the Royal College of Surgeons, measures 27 inches along its anterior

curvature, from the upper edge of the atlas, or first vertebra of the neck, to
the lower extremity of the sacrum; that the arm, without the hand, is 311⁄2
inches long; that the leg, without the foot, is 261⁄2 inches long; that the hand
is 93⁄4 inches long; the foot 111⁄4 inches long.
In other words, taking the length of the spinal column as 100, the arm
equals 115, the leg 96, the hand 36, and the foot 41.
In the skeleton of a male Bosjesman, in the same collection, the
proportions, by the same measurement, to the spinal column, taken as 100,
are—the arm 78, the leg 110, the hand 26, and the foot 32. In a woman of
the same race the arm is 83, and the leg 120, the hand and foot remaining
the same. In a European skeleton I find the arm to be 80, the leg 117, the
hand 26, the foot 35.
Thus the leg is not so different as it looks at first sight, in its proportions to
the spine in the Gorilla and in the Man—being very slightly shorter than the
spine in the former, and between 1⁄10 and 1⁄5 longer than the spine in the
latter. The foot is longer and the hand much longer in the Gorilla; but the
great difference is caused by the arms, which are very much longer than the
spine in the Gorilla, very much shorter than the spine in the Man.
The question now arises how are the other Apes related to the Gorilla in
these respects—taking the length of the spine, measured in the same way, at
100. In an adult Chimpanzee, the arm is only 96, the leg 90, the hand 43,
the foot 39—so that the hand and the leg depart more from the human
proportion and the arm less, while the foot is about the same as in the
Gorilla.
In the Orang, the arms are very much longer than in the Gorilla (122), while
the legs are shorter (88); the foot is longer than the hand (52 and 48), and
both are much longer in proportion to the spine.
In the other man-like Apes again, the Gibbons, these proportions are still
further altered; the length of the arms being to that of the spinal column as
19 to 11; while the legs are also a third longer than the spinal column, so as
to be longer than in Man, instead of shorter. The hand is half as long as the
spinal column, and the foot, shorter than the hand, is about 5⁄11ths of the
length of the spinal column.

Thus Hylobates is as much longer in the arms than the Gorilla, as the
Gorilla is longer in the arms than Man; while, on the other hand, it is as
much longer in the legs than the Man, as the Man is longer in the legs than
the Gorilla, so that it contains within itself the extremest deviations from the
average length of both pairs of limbs (see the Frontispiece).
The Mandrill presents a middle condition, the arms and legs being nearly
equal in length, and both being shorter than the spinal column; while hand
and foot have nearly the same proportions to one another and to the spine,
as in Man.
In the Spider monkey (Ateles) the leg is longer than the spine, and the arm
than the leg; and, finally, in that remarkable Lemurine form, the Indri
(Lichanotus), the leg is about as long as the spinal column, while the arm is
not more than 11⁄18ths of its length; the hand having rather less and the foot
rather more, than one-third the length of the spinal column.
These examples might be greatly multiplied, but they suffice to show that,
in whatever proportion of its limbs the Gorilla differs from Man, the other
Apes depart still more widely from the Gorilla, and that, consequently, such
differences of proportion can have no ordinal value.

We may next consider the differences presented by the trunk, consisting of
the vertebral column, or backbone, and the ribs and pelvis, or bony hip-
basin, which are connected with it, in Man and in the Gorilla respectively.
In Man, in consequence partly of the disposition of the articular surfaces of
the vertebræ, and largely of the elastic tension of some of the fibrous bands,
or ligaments, which connect these vertebræ together, the spinal column, as a
whole, has an elegant S-like curvature, being convex forwards in the neck,
concave in the back, convex in the loins, or lumbar region, and concave
again in the sacral region; an arrangement which gives much elasticity to
the whole backbone, and diminishes the jar communicated to the spine, and
through it to the head, by locomotion in the erect position.

Furthermore, under ordinary circumstances, Man has seven vertebræ in his
neck, which are called cervical; twelve succeed these, bearing ribs and
forming the upper part of the back, whence they are termed dorsal; five lie
in the loins, bearing no distinct, or free, ribs, and are called lumbar; five,
united together into a great bone, excavated in front, solidly wedged in
between the hip bones, to form the back of the pelvis, and known by the
name of the sacrum, succeed these; and finally, three or four little more or
less moveable bones, so small as to be insignificant, constitute the coccyx or
rudimentary tail.
In the Gorilla, the vertebral column is similarly divided into cervical,
dorsal, lumbar, sacral and coccygeal vertebræ, and the total number of
cervical and dorsal vertebræ, taken together, is the same as in Man; but the
development of a pair of ribs to the first lumbar vertebra, which is an
exceptional occurrence in Man, is the rule in the Gorilla; and hence, as
lumbar are distinguished from dorsal vertebræ only by the presence or
absence of free ribs, the seventeen “dorso-lumbar” vertebræ of the Gorilla
are divided into thirteen dorsal and four lumbar, while in Man they are
twelve dorsal and five lumbar.

Not only, however, does Man occasionally possess thirteen pair of ribs,[27]
but the Gorilla sometimes has fourteen pairs, while an Orang-Utan skeleton
in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons has twelve dorsal and five
lumbar vertebræ, as in Man. Cuvier notes the same number in a Hylobates.
On the other hand, among the lower Apes, many possess twelve dorsal and
six or seven lumbar vertebræ; the Douroucouli has fourteen dorsal and eight
lumbar, and a Lemur (Stenops tardigradus) has fifteen dorsal and nine
lumbar vertebræ.
The vertebral column of the Gorilla, as a whole, differs from that of Man in
the less marked character of its curves, especially in the slighter convexity
of the lumbar region. Nevertheless, the curves are present, and are quite
obvious in young skeletons of the Gorilla and Chimpanzee which have been
prepared without removal of the ligaments. In young Orangs similarly
preserved, on the other hand, the spinal column is either straight, or even
concave forwards, throughout the lumbar region.

Whether we take these characters then, or such minor ones as those which
are derivable from the proportional length of the spines of the cervical
vertebræ, and the like, there is no doubt whatsoever as to the marked
difference between Man and the Gorilla; but there is as little, that equally
marked differences, of the very same order, obtain between the Gorilla and
the lower apes.

Fig. 15.—Front and side views of the bony pelvis of Man, the
Gorilla and Gibbon: reduced from drawings made from nature, of
the same absolute length, by Mr. Waterhouse Hawkins.

The Pelvis, or bony girdle of the hips, of Man is a strikingly human part of
his organization; the expanded haunch bones affording support for his
viscera during his habitually erect posture, and giving space for the
attachment of the great muscles which enable him to assume and to
preserve that attitude. In these respects the pelvis of the Gorilla differs very
considerably from his (Fig. 15). But go no lower than the Gibbon, and see
how vastly more he differs from the Gorilla than the latter does from Man,
even in this structure. Look at the flat, narrow haunch bones—the long and
narrow passage—the coarse, outwardly curved, ischiatic prominences on
which the Gibbon habitually rests, and which are coated by the so-called
“callosities,” dense patches of skin, wholly absent in the Gorilla, in the
Chimpanzee, and in the Orang, as in Man!
In the lower Monkeys and in the Lemurs the difference becomes more
striking still, the pelvis acquiring an altogether quadrupedal character.
But now let us turn to a nobler and more characteristic organ—that by
which the human frame seems to be, and indeed is, so strongly
distinguished from all others,—I mean the skull. The differences between a
Gorilla’s skull and a Man’s are truly immense (Fig. 16). In the former, the
face, formed largely by the massive jaw-bones, predominates over the brain
case, or cranium proper: in the latter, the proportions of the two are
reversed. In the Man, the occipital foramen, through which passes the great
nervous cord connecting the brain with the nerves of the body, is placed just
behind the centre of the base of the skull, which thus becomes evenly
balanced in the erect posture; in the Gorilla, it lies in the posterior third of
that base. In the Man, the surface of the skull is comparatively smooth, and
the supraciliary ridges or brow prominences usually project but little—
while, in the Gorilla, vast crests are developed upon the skull, and the brow
ridges overhang the cavernous orbits, like great penthouses.
Sections of the skulls, however, show that some of the apparent defects of
the Gorilla’s cranium arise, in fact, not so much from deficiency of brain
case as from excessive development of the parts of the face. The cranial
cavity is not ill-shaped, and the forehead is not truly flattened or very
retreating, its really well-formed curve being simply disguised by the mass
of bone which is built up against it (Fig. 16).

But the roofs of the orbits rise more obliquely into the cranial cavity, thus
diminishing the space for the lower part of the anterior lobes of the brain,
and the absolute capacity of the cranium is far less than that of Man. So far
as I am aware, no human cranium belonging to an adult man has yet been
observed with a less cubical capacity than 62 cubic inches, the smallest
cranium observed in any race of men by Morton, measuring 63 cubic
inches; while, on the other hand, the most capacious Gorilla skull yet
measured has a content of not more than 341⁄2 cubic inches. Let us assume,
for simplicity’s sake, that the lowest Man’s skull has twice the capacity of
that of the highest Gorilla.[28]
No doubt, this is a very striking difference, but it loses much of its apparent
systematic value, when viewed by the light of certain other equally
indubitable facts respecting cranial capacities.
The first of these is, that the difference in the volume of the cranial cavity of
different races of mankind is far greater, absolutely, than that between the
lowest Man and the highest Ape, while, relatively, it is about the same. For
the largest human skull measured by Morton contained 114 cubic inches,
that is to say, had very nearly double the capacity of the smallest; while its
absolute preponderance, of 52 cubic inches—is far greater than that by
which the lowest adult male human cranium surpasses the largest of the
Gorillas (62-341⁄2; = 2711⁄2). Secondly, the adult crania of Gorillas which
have as yet been measured differ among themselves by nearly one-third, the
maximum capacity being 34.5 cubic inches, the minimum 24 cubic inches;
and, thirdly, after making all due allowance for difference of size, the
cranial capacities of some of the lower Apes fall nearly as much, relatively,
below those of the higher Apes as the latter fall below Man.
Thus, even in the important matter of cranial capacity, Men differ more
widely from one another than they do from the Apes; while the lowest Apes
differ as much, in proportion, from the highest, as the latter does from Man.
The last proposition is still better illustrated by the study of the
modifications which other parts of the cranium undergo in the Simian
series.
It is the large proportional size of the facial bones and the great projection
of the jaws which confers upon the Gorilla’s skull its small facial angle and

brutal character.
But if we consider the proportional size of the facial bones to the skull
proper only, the little Chrysothrix (Fig. 16) differs very widely from the
Gorilla, and in the same way as Man does; while the Baboons
(Cynocephalus, Fig. 16) exaggerate the gross proportions of the muzzle of
the great Anthropoid, so that its visage looks mild and human by
comparison with theirs. The difference between the Gorilla and the Baboon
is even greater than it appears at first sight; for the great facial mass of the
former is largely due to a downward development of the jaws; an essentially
human character, superadded upon that almost purely forward, essentially
brutal, development of the same parts which characterizes the Baboon, and
yet more remarkably distinguishes the Lemur.

Fig. 16.—Sections of the skulls of Man and various
Apes, drawn so as to give the cerebral cavity the same
length in each case, thereby displaying the varying
proportions of the facial bones. The line b indicates the
plane of the tentorium, which separates the cerebrum
from the cerebellum; d, the axis of the occipital outlet of
the skull. The extent of cerebral cavity behind c, which
is a perpendicular erected on b at the point where the
tentorium is attached posteriorly, indicates the degree
to which the cerebrum overlaps the cerebellum—the
space occupied by which is roughly indicated by the
dark shading. In comparing these diagrams, it must be
recollected, that figures on so small a scale as these
simply exemplify the statements in the text, the proof of
which is to be found in the objects themselves.

Similarly, the occipital foramen of Mycetes (Fig. 16), and still more of the
Lemurs, is situated completely in the posterior face of the skull, or as much
further back than that of the Gorilla, as that of the Gorilla is further back
than that of Man; while, as if to render patent the futility of the attempt to
base any broad classificatory distinction on such a character, the same
group of Platyrhine, or American monkeys, to which the Mycetes belongs,
contains the Chrysothrix, whose occipital foramen is situated far more
forward than in any other ape, and nearly approaches the position it holds in
Man.
Again, the Orang’s skull is as devoid of excessively developed supraciliary
prominences as a Man’s, though some varieties exhibit great crests
elsewhere (see p. 39); and in some of the Cebine Apes and in the
Chrysothrix, the cranium is as smooth and rounded as that of Man himself.
What is true of these leading characteristics of the skull, holds good, as may
be imagined, of all minor features; so that for every constant difference
between the Gorilla’s skull and the Man’s, a similar constant difference of
the same order (that is to say, consisting in excess or defect of the same
quality) may be found between the Gorilla’s skull and that of some other
ape. So that, for the skull, no less than for the skeleton in general, the
proposition holds good, that the differences between Man and the Gorilla
are of smaller value than those between the Gorilla and some other Apes.
In connection with the skull, I may speak of the teeth—organs which have a
peculiar classificatory value, and whose resemblances and differences of
number, form, and succession, taken as a whole, are usually regarded as
more trustworthy indicators of affinity than any others.
Man is provided with two sets of teeth—milk teeth and permanent teeth.
The former consist of four incisors, or cutting teeth; two canines, or eye-
teeth; and four molars, or grinders, in each jaw—making twenty in all. The
latter (Fig. 17) comprise four incisors, two canines, four small grinders,
called premolars or false molars, and six large grinders, or true molars, in
each jaw—making thirty-two in all. The internal incisors are larger than the
external pair, in the upper jaw, smaller than the external pair, in the lower
jaw. The crowns of the upper molars exhibit four cusps, or blunt-pointed
elevations, and a ridge crosses the crown obliquely, from the inner, anterior,

cusp to the outer, posterior cusp (Fig. 17 m2). The anterior lower molars
have five cusps, three external and two internal. The premolars have two
cusps, one internal and one external, of which the outer is the higher.
In all these respects the dentition of the Gorilla may be described in the
same terms as that of Man; but in other matters it exhibits many and
important differences (Fig. 17).
Thus the teeth of man constitute a regular and even series—without any
break and without any marked projection of one tooth above the level of the
rest; a peculiarity which, as Cuvier long ago showed, is shared by no other
mammal save one—as different a creature from man as can well be
imagined—namely, the long extinct Anoplotherium. The teeth of the
Gorilla, on the contrary, exhibit a break, or interval, termed the diastema, in
both jaws: in front of the eye-tooth, or between it and the outer incisor, in
the upper jaw; behind the eye-tooth, or between it and the front false molar,
in the lower jaw. Into this break in the series, in each jaw, fits the canine of
the opposite jaw; the size of the eye-tooth in the Gorilla being so great that
it projects, like a tusk, far beyond the general level of the other teeth. The
roots of the false molar teeth of the Gorilla, again, are more complex than in
Man, and the proportional size of the molars is different. The Gorilla has
the crown of the hindmost grinder of the lower jaw more complex, and the
order of eruption of the permanent teeth is different; the permanent canines
making their appearance before the second and third molars in Man, and
after them in the Gorilla.
Thus, while the teeth of the Gorilla closely resemble those of Man in
number, kind, and in the general pattern of their crowns, they exhibit
marked differences from those of Man in secondary respects, such as
relative size, number of fangs, and order of appearance.
But, if the teeth of the Gorilla be compared with those of an Ape, no further
removed from it than a Cynocephalus, or Baboon, it will be found that
differences and resemblances of the same order are easily observable; but
that many of the points in which the Gorilla resembles Man are those in
which it differs from the Baboon; while various respects in which it differs
from Man are exaggerated in the Cynocephalus. The number and the nature
of the teeth remain the same in the Baboon as in the Gorilla and in Man.

But the pattern of the Baboon’s upper molars is quite different from that
described above (Fig. 17), the canines are proportionally longer and more
knife-like; the anterior premolar in the lower jaw is specially modified; the
posterior molar of the lower jaw is still larger and more complex than in the
Gorilla.
Passing from the old-world Apes to those of the new world, we meet with a
change of much greater importance than any of these. In such a genus as
Cebus, for example (Fig. 17), it will be found that while in some secondary
points, such as the projection of the canines and the diastema, the
resemblance to the great ape is preserved; in other and most important
respects, the dentition is extremely different. Instead of 20 teeth in the milk
set, there are 24: instead of 32 teeth in the permanent set, there are 36, the
false molars being increased from eight to twelve. And in form, the crowns
of the molars are very unlike those of the Gorilla, and differ far more
widely from the human pattern.

Fig. 17.—Lateral views, of the same length, of the upper jaws of
various Primates. i, incisors; c, canines; pm, premolars; m, molars.
A line is drawn through the first molar of Man, Gorilla,
Cynocephalus, and Cebus, and the grinding surface of the second
molar is shown in each, its anterior and internal angle being just
above the m of m2.

The Marmosets, on the other hand, exhibit the same number of teeth as Man
and the Gorilla; but, notwithstanding this, their dentition is very different,
for they have four more false molars, like the other American monkeys—
but as they have four fewer true molars, the total remains the same. And
passing from the American Apes to the Lemurs, the dentition becomes still
more completely and essentially different from that of the Gorilla. The

incisors begin to vary both in number and in form. The molars acquire,
more and more, a many-pointed, insectivorous character, and in one Genus,
the Aye-Aye (Cheiromys), the canines disappear, and the teeth completely
simulate those of a Rodent (Fig. 17).
Hence it is obvious that, greatly as the dentition of the highest Ape differs
from that of Man, it differs far more widely from that of the lower and
lowest Apes.

Whatever part of the animal fabric—whatever series of muscles, whatever
viscera might be selected for comparison—the result would be the same—
the lower Apes and the Gorilla would differ more than the Gorilla and the
Man. I cannot attempt in this place to follow out all these comparisons in
detail, and indeed it is unnecessary I should do so. But certain real, or
supposed, structural distinctions between man and the apes remain, upon
which so much stress has been laid, that they require careful consideration,
in order that the true value may be assigned to those which are real, and the
emptiness of those which are fictitious may be exposed. I refer to the
characters of the hand, the foot, and the brain.
Man has been defined as the only animal possessed of two hands
terminating his fore-limbs, and of two feet ending his hind limbs, while it
has been said that all the apes possess four hands; and he has been affirmed
to differ fundamentally from all the apes in the characters of his brain,
which alone, it has been strangely asserted and re-asserted, exhibits the
structures known to anatomists as the posterior lobe, the posterior cornu of
the lateral ventricle, and the hippocampus minor.
That the former proposition should have gained general acceptance is not
surprising—indeed, at first sight, appearances are much in its favour: but, as
for the second, one can only admire the surpassing courage of its
enunciator, seeing that it is an innovation which is not only opposed to
generally and justly accepted doctrines, but which is directly negatived by
the testimony of all original inquirers, who have specially investigated the
matter: and that it neither has been, nor can be, supported by a single

anatomical preparation. It would, in fact, be unworthy of serious refutation,
except for the general and natural belief that deliberate and reiterated
assertions must have some foundation.

Before we can discuss the first point with advantage we must consider with
some attention, and compare together, the structure of the human hand and
that of the human foot, so that we may have distinct and clear ideas of what
constitutes a hand and what a foot.
The external form of the human hand is familiar enough to every one. It
consists of a stout wrist followed by a broad palm, formed of flesh, and
tendons, and skin, binding together four bones, and dividing into four long
and flexible digits, or fingers, each of which bears on the back of its last
joint a broad and flattened nail. The longest cleft between any two digits is
rather less than half as long as the hand. From the outer side of the base of
the palm a stout digit goes off, having only two joints instead of three; so
short, that it only reaches to a little beyond the middle of the first joint of
the finger next it; and further remarkable by its great mobility, in
consequence of which it can be directed outwards, almost at a right angle to
the rest. This digit is called the “pollex,” or thumb; and, like the others, it
bears a flat nail upon the back of its terminal joint. In consequence of the
proportions and mobility of the thumb, it is what is termed “opposable”; in
other words, its extremity can, with the greatest ease, be brought into
contact with the extremities of any of the fingers; a property upon which the
possibility of our carrying into effect the conceptions of the mind so largely
depends.
The external form of the foot differs widely from that of the hand; and yet,
when closely compared, the two present some singular resemblances. Thus
the ankle corresponds in a manner with the wrist; the sole with the palm;
the toes with the fingers; the great toe with the thumb. But the toes, or digits
of the foot, are far shorter in proportion than the digits of the hand, and are
less moveable, the want of mobility being most striking in the great toe—
which, again, is very much larger in proportion to the other toes than the
thumb to the fingers. In considering this point, however, it must not be

forgotten that the civilized great toe, confined and cramped from childhood
upwards, is seen to a great disadvantage, and that in uncivilized and
barefooted people it retains a great amount of mobility, and even some sort
of opposability. The Chinese boatmen are said to be able to pull an oar, the
artisans of Bengal to weave, and the Carajas to steal fishhooks, by its help;
though, after all, it must be recollected that the structure of its joints and the
arrangement of its bones, necessarily render its prehensile action far less
perfect than that of the thumb.
But to gain a precise conception of the resemblances and differences of the
hand and foot, and of the distinctive characters of each, we must look below
the skin, and compare the bony framework and its motor apparatus in each
(Fig. 18).
The skeleton of the hand exhibits, in the region which we term the wrist,
and which is technically called the carpus—two rows of closely fitted
polygonal bones, four in each row, which are tolerably equal in size. The
bones of the first row with the bones of the forearm form the wrist joint,
and are arranged side by side, no one greatly exceeding or over-lapping the
rest.
The four bones of the second row of the carpus bear the four long bones
which support the palm of the hand. The fifth bone of the same character is
articulated in a much more free and moveable manner than the others, with
its carpal bone, and forms the base of the thumb. These are called
metacarpal bones, and they carry the phalanges, or bones of the digits, of
which there are two in the thumb, and three in each of the fingers.

Fig. 18.—The skeleton of the Hand and Foot of Man reduced from Dr. Carter’s drawings in
Gray’s “Anatomy.” The hand is drawn to a larger scale than the foot. The line a a in the hand
indicates the boundary between the carpus and the metacarpus; b b that between the latter
and the proximal phalanges; c c marks the ends of the distal phalanges. The line a′ a′ in the
foot indicates the boundary between the tarsus and metatarsus; b′ b′ marks that between the
metatarsus and the proximal phalanges; and c′ c′ bounds the ends of the distal phalanges; ca,
the calcaneum; as, the astragalus; sc, the scaphoid bone in the tarsus.

The skeleton of the foot is very like that of the hand in some respects. Thus
there are three phalanges in each of the lesser toes, and only two in the great
toe, which answers to the thumb. There is a long bone, termed metatarsal,
answering to the metacarpal, for each digit; and the tarsus, which
corresponds with the carpus, presents four short polygonal bones in a row,

which correspond very closely with the four carpal bones of the second row
of the hand. In other respects the foot differs very widely from the hand.
Thus the great toe is the longest digit but one; and its metatarsal is far less
moveably articulated with the tarsus, than the metacarpal of the thumb with
the carpus. But a far more important distinction lies in the fact that, instead
of four more tarsal bones there are only three; and that these three are not
arranged side by side, or in one row. One of them, the os calcis or heel bone
(ca), lies externally, and sends back the large projecting heel; another, the
astragalus (as), rests on this by one face, and by another, forms, with the
bones of the leg, the ankle joint; while a third face, directed forwards, is
separated from the three inner tarsal bones of the row next the metatarsus
by a bone called the scaphoid (sc).
Thus there is a fundamental difference in the structure of the foot and the
hand, observable when the carpus and the tarsus are contrasted; and there
are differences of degree noticeable when the proportions and the mobility
of the metacarpals and metatarsals, with their respective digits, are
compared together.
The same two classes of differences become obvious when the muscles of
the hand are compared with those of the foot.
Three principal sets of muscles, called “flexors,” bend the fingers and
thumb, as in clenching the fist, and three sets—the extensors—extend them,
as in straightening the fingers. These muscles are all “long muscles”; that is
to say, the fleshy part of each, lying in and being fixed to the bones of the
arm, is, at the other end, continued into tendons, or rounded cords, which
pass into the hand, and are ultimately fixed to the bones which are to be
moved. Thus, when the fingers are bent, the fleshy parts of the flexors of
the fingers, placed in the arm, contract, in virtue of their peculiar
endowment as muscles; and pulling the tendinous cords, connected with
their ends, cause them to pull down the bones of the fingers towards the
palm.
Not only are the principal flexors of the fingers and of the thumb long
muscles, but they remain quite distinct from one another throughout their
whole length.

In the foot, there are also three principal flexor muscles of the digits or toes,
and three principal extensors; but one extensor and one flexor are short
muscles; that is to say, their fleshy parts are not situated in the leg (which
corresponds with the arm), but in the back and in the sole of the foot—
regions which correspond with the back and the palm of the hand.
Again, the tendons of the long flexor of the toes, and of the long flexor of
the great toe, when they reach the sole of the foot, do not remain distinct
from one another, as the flexors in the palm of the hand do, but they become
united and commingled in a very curious manner—while their united
tendons receive an accessory muscle connected with the heel-bone.
But perhaps the most absolutely distinctive character about the muscles of
the foot is the existence of what is termed the peronæus longus, a long
muscle fixed to the outer bone of the leg, and sending its tendon to the outer
ankle, behind and below which it passes, and then crosses the foot obliquely
to be attached to the base of the great toe. No muscle in the hand exactly
corresponds with this, which is eminently a foot muscle.
To resume—the foot of man is distinguished from his hand by the following
absolute anatomical differences:—
1. By the arrangement of the tarsal bones.
2. By having a short flexor and a short extensor muscle of the digits.
3. By possessing the muscle termed peronæus longus.

And if we desire to ascertain whether the terminal division of a limb, in
other Primates, is to be called a foot or a hand, it is by the presence or
absence of these characters that we must be guided, and not by the mere
proportions and greater or lesser mobility of the great toe, which may vary
indefinitely without any fundamental alteration in the structure of the foot.

Keeping these considerations in mind, let us now turn to the limbs of the
Gorilla. The terminal division of the fore-limb presents no difficulty—bone
for bone and muscle for muscle, are found to be arranged essentially as in
man, or with such minor differences as are found as varieties in man. The

Gorilla’s hand is clumsier, heavier, and has a thumb somewhat shorter in
proportion than that of man; but no one has ever doubted its being a true
hand.
At first sight, the termination of the hind limb of the Gorilla looks very
hand-like, and as it is still more so in many of the lower apes, it is not
wonderful that the appellation “Quadrumana,” or four-handed creatures,
adopted from the older anatomists[29] by Blumenbach, and unfortunately
rendered current by Cuvier, should have gained such wide acceptance as a
name for the Simian group. But the most cursory anatomical investigation
at once proves that the resemblance of the so-called “hind hand” to a true
hand, is only skin deep, and that, in all essential respects, the hind limb of
the Gorilla is as truly terminated by a foot as that of man. The tarsal bones,
in all important circumstances of number, disposition, and form, resemble
those of man (Fig. 19). The metatarsals and digits, on the other hand, are
proportionally longer and more slender, while the great toe is not only
proportionally shorter and weaker, but its metatarsal bone is united by a
more moveable joint with the tarsus. At the same time, the foot is set more
obliquely upon the leg than in man.
As to the muscles, there is a short flexor, a short extensor, and a peronæus
longus, while the tendons of the long flexors of the great toe and of the
other toes are united together and with an accessory fleshy bundle.
The hind limb of the Gorilla, therefore, ends in a true foot, with a very
moveable great toe. It is a prehensile foot, indeed, but is in no sense a hand:
it is a foot which differs from that of man not in any fundamental character,
but in mere proportions, in the degree of mobility, and in the secondary
arrangement of its parts.
It must not be supposed, however, because I speak of these differences as
not fundamental, that I wish to underrate their value. They are important
enough in their way, the structure of the foot being in strict correlation with
that of the rest of the organism in each case. Nor can it be doubted that the
greater division of physiological labour in Man, so that the function of
support is thrown wholly on the leg and foot, is an advance in organization
of very great moment to him; but, after all, regarded anatomically, the

resemblances between the foot of Man and the foot of the Gorilla are far
more striking and important than the differences.

Fig. 19.—Foot of Man, Gorilla, and Orang-Utan of the same absolute length, to show the
differences in proportion of each. Letters as in Fig. 18. Reduced from original drawings by
Mr. Waterhouse Hawkins.

I have dwelt upon this point at length, because it is one regarding which
much delusion prevails; but I might have passed it over without detriment
to my argument, which only requires me to show that, be the differences
between the hand and foot of Man and those of the Gorilla what they may
—the differences between those of the Gorilla and those of the lower Apes
are much greater.
It is not necessary to descend lower in the scale than the Orang for
conclusive evidence on this head.

The thumb of the Orang differs more from that of the Gorilla than the
thumb of the Gorilla differs from that of Man, not only by its shortness, but
by the absence of any special long flexor muscle. The carpus of the Orang,
like that of most lower apes, contains nine bones, while in the Gorilla, as in
Man and the Chimpanzee, there are only eight.
The Orang’s foot (Fig. 19) is still more aberrant; its very long toes and short
tarsus, short great toe, short and raised heel, great obliquity of articulation
in the leg, and absence of a long flexor tendon to the great toe, separating it
far more widely from the foot of the Gorilla than the latter is separated from
that of Man.
But, in some of the lower apes, the hand and foot diverge still more from
those of the Gorilla, than they do in the Orang. The thumb ceases to be
opposable in the American monkeys; is reduced to a mere rudiment covered
by the skin in the Spider Monkey; and is directed forwards and armed with
a curved claw like the other digits, in the Marmosets—so that, in all these
cases, there can be no doubt but that the hand is more different from that of
the Gorilla than the Gorilla’s hand is from Man’s.
And as to the foot, the great toe of the Marmoset is still more insignificant
in proportion than that of the Orang—while in the Lemurs it is very large,
and as completely thumb-like and opposable as in the Gorilla—but in these
animals the second toe is often irregularly modified, and in some species
the two principal bones of the tarsus, the astragalus and the os calcis, are so
immensely elongated as to render the foot, so far, totally unlike that of any
other mammal.
So with regard to the muscles. The short flexor of the toes of the Gorilla
differs from that of Man by the circumstance that one slip of the muscle is
attached, not to the heel bone, but to the tendons of the long flexors. The
lower Apes depart from the Gorilla by an exaggeration of the same
character, two, three, or more, slips becoming fixed to the long flexor
tendons—or by a multiplication of the slips.—Again, the Gorilla differs
slightly from Man in the mode of interlacing of the long flexor tendons: and
the lower apes differ from the Gorilla in exhibiting yet other, sometimes
very complex, arrangements of the same parts, and occasionally in the
absence of the accessory fleshy bundle.

Throughout all these modifications it must be recollected that the foot loses
no one of its essential characters. Every Monkey and Lemur exhibits the
characteristic arrangement of tarsal bones, possesses a short flexor and short
extensor muscle, and a peronæus longus. Varied as the proportions and
appearance of the organ may be, the terminal division of the hind limb
remains, in plan and principle of construction, a foot, and never, in those
respects, can be confounded with a hand.
Hardly any part of the bodily frame, then, could be found better calculated
to illustrate the truth that the structural differences between Man and the
highest Ape are of less value than those between the highest and the lower
Apes, than the hand or the foot, and yet, perhaps, there is one organ the
study of which enforces the same conclusion in a still more striking manner
—and that is the Brain.
But before entering upon the precise question of the amount of difference
between the Ape’s brain and that of Man, it is necessary that we should
clearly understand what constitutes a great, and what a small difference in
cerebral structure; and we shall be best enabled to do this by a brief study of
the chief modifications which the brain exhibits in the series of vertebrate
animals.
The brain of a fish is very small, compared with the spinal cord into which
it is continued, and with the nerves which come off from it: of the segments
of which it is composed—the olfactory lobes, the cerebral hemisphere, and
the succeeding divisions—no one predominates so much over the rest as to
obscure or cover them; and the so-called optic lobes are, frequently, the
largest masses of all. In Reptiles, the mass of the brain, relatively to the
spinal cord, increases and the cerebral hemispheres begin to predominate
over the other parts; while in Birds this predominance is still more marked.
The brain of the lowest Mammals, such as the duck-billed Platypus and the
Opossums and Kangaroos, exhibits a still more definite advance in the same
direction. The cerebral hemispheres have now so much increased in size as,
more or less, to hide the representatives of the optic lobes, which remain
comparatively small, so that the brain of a Marsupial is extremely different
from that of a Bird, Reptile, or Fish. A step higher in the scale, among the
placental Mammals, the structure of the brain acquires a vast modification
—not that it appears much altered externally, in a Rat or in a Rabbit, from

what it is in a Marsupial—nor that the proportions of its parts are much
changed, but an apparently new structure is found between the cerebral
hemispheres, connecting them together, as what is called the “great
commissure” or “corpus callosum.” The subject requires careful re-
investigation, but if the currently received statements are correct, the
appearance of the “corpus callosum” in the placental mammals is the
greatest and most sudden modification exhibited by the brain in the whole
series of vertebrated animals—it is the greatest leap anywhere made by
Nature in her brain work. For the two halves of the brain being once thus
knit together, the progress of cerebral complexity is traceable through a
complete series of steps from the lowest Rodent, or Insectivore, to Man;
and that complexity consists, chiefly, in the disproportionate development
of the cerebral hemispheres and of the cerebellum, but especially of the
former, in respect to the other parts of the brain.
In the lower placental mammals, the cerebral hemispheres leave the proper
upper and posterior face of the cerebellum completely visible, when the
brain is viewed from above, but, in the higher forms, the hinder part of each
hemisphere, separated only by the tentorium (p. 92) from the anterior face
of the cerebellum, inclines backwards and downwards, and grows out, as
the so-called “posterior lobe,” so as at length to overlap and hide the
cerebellum. In all Mammals, each cerebral hemisphere contains a cavity
which is termed the “ventricle,” and as this ventricle is prolonged, on the
one hand, forwards, and on the other downwards, into the substance of the
hemisphere, it is said to have two horns or “cornua,” an “anterior cornu,”
and a “descending cornu.” When the posterior lobe is well developed, a
third prolongation of the ventricular cavity extends into it, and is called the
“posterior cornu.”
In the lower and smaller forms of placental Mammals the surface of the
cerebral hemispheres is either smooth or evenly rounded, or exhibits a very
few grooves, which are technically termed “sulci,” separating ridges or
“convolutions” of the substance of the brain; and the smaller species of all
orders tend to a similar smoothness of brain. But, in the higher orders, and
especially the larger members of these orders, the grooves, or sulci, become
extremely numerous, and the intermediate convolutions proportionately
more complicated in their meanderings, until, in the Elephant, the Porpoise,

the higher Apes, and Man, the cerebral surface appears a perfect labyrinth
of tortuous foldings.
Where a posterior lobe exists and presents its customary cavity—the
posterior cornu—it commonly happens that a particular sulcus appears upon
the inner and under surface of the lobe, parallel with and beneath the floor
of the cornu—which is, as it were, arched over the roof of the sulcus. It is as
if the groove had been formed by indenting the floor of the posterior horn
from without with a blunt instrument, so that the floor should rise as a
convex eminence. Now this eminence is what has been termed the
“Hippocampus minor”; the “Hippocampus major” being a larger eminence
in the floor of the descending cornu. What may be the functional
importance of either of these structures we know not.

As if to demonstrate, by a striking example, the impossibility of erecting
any cerebral barrier between man and the apes, Nature has provided us, in
the latter animals, with an almost complete series of gradations from brains
little higher than that of a Rodent, to brains little lower than that of Man.
And it is a remarkable circumstance that though, so far as our present
knowledge extends, there is one true structural break in the series of forms
of Simian brains, this hiatus does not lie between Man and the man-like
Apes, but between the lower and the lowest Simians; or, in other words,
between the old and new world apes and monkeys, and the Lemurs. Every
Lemur which has yet been examined, in fact, has its cerebellum partially
visible from above, and its posterior lobe, with the contained posterior
cornu and hippocampus minor, more or less rudimentary. Every Marmoset,
American monkey, old world monkey, Baboon, or Man-like ape, on the
contrary, has its cerebellum entirely hidden, posteriorly, by the cerebral
lobes, and possesses a large posterior cornu, with a well-developed
hippocampus minor.

In many of these creatures, such as the Saimiri (Chrysothrix), the cerebral
lobes overlap and extend much further behind the cerebellum, in
proportion, than they do in man (Fig. 16)—and it is quite certain that, in all,
the cerebellum is completely covered behind, by well-developed posterior
lobes. The fact can be verified by every one who possesses the skull of any
old or new world monkey. For, inasmuch as the brain in all mammals
completely fills the cranial cavity, it is obvious that a cast of the interior of
the skull will reproduce the general form of the brain, at any rate with such
minute and, for the present purpose, utterly unimportant differences as may
result from the absence of the enveloping membranes of the brain in the dry
skull. But if such a cast be made in plaster, and compared with a similar cast
of the interior of a human skull, it will be obvious that the cast of the
cerebral chamber, representing the cerebrum of the ape, as completely
covers over and overlaps the cast of the cerebellar chamber, representing
the cerebellum, as it does in the man (Fig. 20). A careless observer,
forgetting that a soft structure like the brain loses its proper shape the
moment it is taken out of the skull, may indeed mistake the uncovered
condition of the cerebellum of an extracted and distorted brain for the
natural relations of the parts; but his error must become patent even to
himself if he try to replace the brain of an ape is naturally uncovered behind
is a miscomprehension comparable only to that of one who should imagine
that a man’s lungs always occupy but a small portion of the thoracic cavity
—because they do so when the chest is opened, and their elasticity is no
longer neutralized by the pressure of the air.

Fig. 20.—Drawings of the internal casts of a Man’s and of a
Chimpanzee’s skull, of the same absolute length, and placed in
corresponding positions, A. Cerebrum; B. Cerebellum. The former
drawing is taken from a cast in the Museum of the Royal College of
Surgeons, the latter from the photograph of the cast of a
Chimpanzee’s skull, which illustrates the paper by Mr. Marshall “On
the Brain of the Chimpanzee” in the Natural History Review for July,
1861. The sharper definition of the lower edge of the cast of the
cerebral chamber in the Chimpanzee arises from the circumstance
that the tentorium remained in that skull and not in the Man’s. The
cast more accurately represents the brain in Chimpanzee than in the
Man; and the great backward projection of the posterior lobes of the
cerebrum of the former, beyond the cerebellum, is conspicuous.

And the error is the less excusable, as it must become apparent to every one
who examines a section of the skull of any ape above a Lemur, without
taking the trouble to make a cast of it. For there is a very marked groove in
every such skull, as in the human skull—which indicates the line of
attachment of what is termed the tentorium—a sort of parchment-like shelf,
or partition, which, in the recent state, is interposed between the cerebrum
and cerebellum, and prevents the former from pressing upon the latter (see
Fig. 16).
This groove, therefore, indicates the line of separation between that part of
the cranial cavity which contains the cerebrum, and that which contains the
cerebellum; and as the brain exactly fills the cavity of the skull, it is obvious
that the relations of these two parts of the cranial cavity at once informs us
of the relations of their contents. Now in man, in all the old world, and in all
the new world Simiæ, with one exception, when the face is directed
forwards, this line of attachment of the tentorium, or impression for the
lateral sinus, as it is technically called, is nearly horizontal, and the cerebral
chamber invariably overlaps or projects behind the cerebellar chamber. In
the Howler Monkey or Mycetes (see Fig. 16), the line passes obliquely
upwards and backwards, and the cerebral overlap is almost nil; while in the
Lemurs, as in the lower mammals, the line is much more inclined in the
same direction, and the cerebellar chamber projects considerably beyond
the cerebral.
When the gravest errors respecting points so easily settled as this question
respecting the posterior lobes can be authoritatively propounded, it is no
wonder that matters of observation, of no very complex character, but still
requiring a certain amount of care, should have fared worse. Any one who
cannot see the posterior lobe in an ape’s brain is not likely to give a very
valuable opinion respecting the posterior cornu or the hippocampus minor.
If a man cannot see a church, it is preposterous to take his opinion about its
altar-piece or painted window—so that I do not feel bound to enter upon
any discussion of these points, but content myself with assuring the reader
that the posterior cornu and the hippocampus minor, have now been seen—
usually, at least as well developed as in man, and often better—not only in
the Chimpanzee, the Orang, and the Gibbon, but in all the genera of the old
world baboons and monkeys, and in most of the new world forms,
including the Marmosets.[30]

In fact, all the abundant and trustworthy evidence (consisting of the results
of careful investigations directed to the determination of these very
questions, by skilled anatomists) which we now possess, leads to the
conviction that, so far from the posterior lobe, the posterior cornu, and the
hippocampus minor, being structures peculiar to and characteristic of man,
as they have been over and over again asserted to be, even after the
publication of the clearest demonstration of the reverse, it is precisely these
structures which are the most marked cerebral characters common to man
with the apes. They are among the most distinctly Simian peculiarities
which the human organism exhibits.
As to the convolutions, the brains of the apes exhibit every stage of
progress, from the almost smooth brain of the Marmoset, to the Orang and
the Chimpanzee, which fall but little below Man. And it is most remarkable
that, as soon as all the principal sulci appear, the pattern according to which
they are arranged is identical with that of the corresponding sulci of man.
The surface of the brain of a monkey exhibits a sort of skeleton map of
man’s, and in the man-like Apes the details become more and more filled in,
until it is only in minor characters, such as the greater excavation of the
anterior lobes, the constant presence of fissures usually absent in man, and
the different disposition and proportions of some convolutions, that the
Chimpanzee’s or the Orang’s brain can be structurally distinguished from
Man’s.

Fig. 21.—Drawings of the cerebral hemispheres of
a Man and of a Chimpanzee of the same length, in
order to show the relative proportions of the parts:
the former taken from a specimen, which Mr.
Flower, Conservator of the Museum of the Royal
College of Surgeons, was good enough to dissect
for me; the latter, from the photograph of a
similarly dissected Chimpanzee’s brain, given in
Mr. Marshall’s paper above referred to. a,
posterior lobe; b, lateral ventricle; c, posterior
cornu; x, the hippocampus minor.

So far as cerebral structure goes, therefore, it is clear that Man differs less
from the Chimpanzee or the Orang, than these do even from the Monkeys,

and that the difference between the brains of the Chimpanzee and of Man is
almost insignificant, when compared with that between the Chimpanzee
brain and that of a Lemur.
It must not be overlooked, however, that there is a very striking difference
in the absolute mass and weight between the lowest human brain and that of
the highest ape—a difference which is all the more remarkable when we
recollect that a full grown Gorilla is probably pretty nearly twice as heavy
as a Bosjes man, or as many an European woman. It may be doubted
whether a healthy human adult brain ever weighed less than thirty-one or
two ounces, or that the heaviest Gorilla brain has exceeded twenty ounces.
This is a very noteworthy circumstance, and doubtless will one day help to
furnish an explanation of the great gulf which intervenes between the
lowest man and the highest ape in intellectual power;[31] but it has little
systematic value, for the simple reason that, as may be concluded from
what has been already said respecting cranial capacity, the difference in
weight of brain between the highest and the lowest men is far greater, both
relatively and absolutely, than that between the lowest man and the highest
ape. The latter, as has been seen, is represented by, say twelve, ounces of
cerebral substance absolutely, or by 32 : 20 relatively; but as the largest
recorded human brain weighed between 65 and 66 ounces, the former
difference is represented by more than 33 ounces absolutely, or by 65 : 32
relatively. Regarded systematically the cerebral differences, of man and
apes, are not of more than generic value—his Family distinction resting
chiefly on his dentition, his pelvis, and his lower limbs.

Thus, whatever system of organs be studied, the comparison of their
modifications in the ape series leads to one and the same result—that the
structural differences which separate Man from the Gorilla and the
Chimpanzee are not so great as those which separate the Gorilla from the
lower apes.
But in enunciating this important truth I must guard myself against a form
of misunderstanding, which is very prevalent. I find, in fact, that those who

endeavour to teach what nature so clearly shows us in this matter, are liable
to have their opinions misrepresented and their phraseology garbled, until
they seem to say that the structural differences between man and even the
highest apes are small and insignificant. Let me take this opportunity then
of distinctly asserting, on the contrary, that they are great and significant;
that every bone of a Gorilla bears marks by which it might be distinguished
from the corresponding bone of a Man; and that, in the present creation, at
any rate, no intermediate link bridges over the gap between Homo and
Troglodytes.
It would be no less wrong than absurd to deny the existence of this chasm;
but it is at least equally wrong and absurd to exaggerate its magnitude, and,
resting on the admitted fact of its existence, to refuse to inquire whether it is
wide or narrow. Remember, if you will, that there is no existing link
between Man and the Gorilla, but do not forget that there is a no less sharp
line of demarcation, a no less complete absence of any transitional form,
between the Gorilla and the Orang, or the Orang and the Gibbon. I say, not
less sharp, though it is somewhat narrower. The structural differences
between Man and the Man-like Apes certainly justify our regarding him as
constituting a family apart from them; though, inasmuch as he differs less
from them than they do from other families of the same order, there can be
no justification for placing him in a distinct order.
And thus the sagacious foresight of the great lawgiver of systematic
zoology, Linnæus, becomes justified, and a century of anatomical research
brings us back to his conclusion, that man is a member of the same order
(for which the Linnæan term Primates ought to be retained) as the Apes and
Lemurs. This order is now divisible into seven families, of about equal
systematic value: the first, the Anthropini, contains Man alone; the second,
the Catarhini, embraces the old world apes; the third, the Platyrhini, all
new world apes, except the Marmosets; the fourth, the Arctopithecini,
contains the Marmosets; the fifth, the Lemurini, the Lemurs—from which
Cheiromys should probably be excluded to form a sixth distinct family, the
Cheiromyini; while the seventh, the Galeopithecini, contains only the flying
Lemur Galeopithecus,—a strange form which almost touches on the Bats,
as the Cheiromys puts on a rodent clothing, and the Lemurs simulate
Insectivora.

Perhaps no order of mammals presents us with so extraordinary a series of
gradations as this—leading us insensibly from the crown and summit of the
animal creation down to creatures, from which there is but a step, as it
seems, to the lowest, smallest, and least intelligent of the placental
Mammalia. It is as if nature herself had foreseen the arrogance of man, and
with Roman severity had provided that his intellect, by its very triumphs,
should call into prominence the slaves, admonishing the conqueror that he
is but dust.

These are the chief facts, this the immediate conclusion from them to which
I adverted in the commencement of this Essay. The facts, I believe, cannot
be disputed; and if so, the conclusion appears to me to be inevitable.
But if Man be separated by no greater structural barrier from the brutes than
they are from one another—then it seems to follow that if any process of
physical causation can be discovered by which the genera and families of
ordinary animals have been produced, that process of causation is amply
sufficient to account for the origin of Man. In other words, if it could be
shown that the Marmosets, for example, have arisen by gradual
modification of the ordinary Platyrhini, or that both Marmosets and
Platyrhini are modified ramifications of a primitive stock—then, there
would be no rational ground for doubting that man might have originated,
in the one case, by the gradual modification of a man-like ape; or, in the
othercase, as a ramification of the same primitive stock as those apes.
At the present moment, but one such process of physical causation has any
evidence in its favour; or, in other words, there is but one hypothesis
regarding the origin of species of animals in general which has any
scientific existence—that propounded by Mr. Darwin. For Lamarck,
sagacious as many of his views were, mingled them with so much that was
crude and even absurd, as to neutralize the benefit which his originality
might have effected, had he been a more sober and cautious thinker; and
though I have heard of the announcement of a formula touching “the
ordained continuous becoming of organic forms,” it is obvious that it is the
first duty of a hypothesis to be intelligible, and that a qua-quâ-versal

proposition of this kind, which may be read backwards, or forwards, or
sideways, with exactly the same amount of signification, does not really
exist, though it may seem to do so.
At the present moment, therefore, the question of the relation of man to the
lower animals resolves itself, in the end, into the larger question of the
tenability or untenability of Mr. Darwin’s views. But here we enter upon
difficult ground, and it behoves us to define our exact position with the
greatest care.
It cannot be doubted, I think, that Mr. Darwin has satisfactorily proved that
what he terms selection, or selective modification, must occur, and does
occur, in nature; and he has also proved to superfluity that such selection is
competent to produce forms as distinct, structurally, as some genera even
are. If the animated world presented us with none but structural differences,
I should have no hesitation in saying that Mr. Darwin had demonstrated the
existence of a true physical cause, amply competent to account for the
origin of living species, and of man among the rest.
But, in addition to their structural distinctions, the species of animals and
plants, or at least a great number of them, exhibit physiological characters
—what are known as distinct species, structurally, being for the most part
either altogether incompetent to breed one with another; or if they breed,
the resulting mule, or hybrid, is unable to perpetuate its race with another
hybrid of the same kind.
A true physical cause is, however, admitted to be such only on one
condition—that it shall account for all the phenomena which come within
the range of its operation. If it is inconsistent with any one phenomenon, it
must be rejected; if it fails to explain any one phenomenon, it is so far
weak, so far to be suspected; though it may have a perfect right to claim
provisional acceptance.
Now, Mr. Darwin’s hypothesis is not, so far as I am aware, inconsistent with
any known biological fact; on the contrary, if admitted, the facts of
Development, of Comparative Anatomy, of Geographical Distribution, and
of Palæontology, become connected together, and exhibit a meaning such as
they never possessed before; and I, for one, am fully convinced, that if not
precisely true, that hypothesis is as near an approximation to the truth as,

for example, the Copernican hypothesis was to the true theory of the
planetary motions.
But, for all this, our acceptance of the Darwinian hypothesis must be
provisional so long as one link in the chain of evidence is wanting; and so
long as all the animals and plants certainly produced by selective breeding
from a common stock are fertile, and their progeny are fertile with one
another, that link will be wanting. For, so long, selective breeding will not
be proved to be competent to do all that is required of it to produce natural
species.
I have put this conclusion as strongly as possible before the reader, because
the last position in which I wish to find myself is that of an advocate for Mr.
Darwin’s, or any other views—if by an advocate is meant one whose
business it is to smooth over real difficulties, and to persuade where he
cannot convince.
In justice to Mr. Darwin, however, it must be admitted that the conditions of
fertility and sterility are very ill understood, and that every day’s advance in
knowledge leads us to regard the hiatus in his evidence as of less and less
importance, when set against the multitude of facts which harmonize with,
or receive an explanation from, his doctrines.
I adopt Mr. Darwin’s hypothesis, therefore, subject to the production of
proof that physiological species may be produced by selective breeding;
just as a physical philosopher may accept the undulatory theory of light,
subject to the proof of the existence of the hypothetical ether; or as the
chemist adopts the atomic theory, subject to the proof of the existence of
atoms; and for exactly the same reasons, namely, that it has an immense
amount of primâ facie probability; that it is the only means at present within
reach of reducing the chaos of observed facts to order; and lastly, that it is
the most powerful instrument of investigation which has been presented to
naturalists since the invention of the natural system of classification, and
the commencement of the systematic study of embryology.
But even leaving Mr. Darwin’s views aside, the whole analogy of natural
operations furnishes so complete and crushing an argument against the
intervention of any but what are termed secondary causes, in the production
of all the phenomena of the universe; that, in view of the intimate relations

between Man and the rest of the living world; and between the forces
exerted by the latter and all other forces, I can see no excuse for doubting
that all are co-ordinated terms of Nature’s great progression, from the
formless to the formed—from the inorganic to the organic—from blind
force to conscious intellect and will.

Science has fulfilled her function when she has ascertained and enunciated
truth; and were these pages addressed to men of science only, I should now
close this essay, knowing that my colleagues have learned to respect
nothing but evidence, and to believe that their highest duty lies in
submitting to it, however it may jar against their inclinations.
But desiring, as I do, to reach the wider circle of the intelligent public, it
would be unworthy cowardice were I to ignore the repugnance with which
the majority of my readers are likely to meet the conclusions to which the
most careful and conscientious study I have been able to give to this matter,
has led me.
On all sides I shall hear the cry—“We are men and women, not a mere
better sort of apes, a little longer in the leg, more compact in the foot, and
bigger in brain than your brutal Chimpanzees and Gorillas. The power of
knowledge—the conscience of good and evil—the pitiful tenderness of
human affections, raise us out of all real fellowship with the brutes,
however closely they may seem to approximate us.”
To this I can only reply that the exclamation would be most just and would
have my own entire sympathy, if it were only relevant. But, it is not I who
seek to base Man’s dignity upon his great toe, or insinuate that we are lost if
an Ape has a hippocampus minor. On the contrary, I have done my best to
sweep away this vanity. I have endeavoured to show that no absolute
structural line of demarcation, wider than that between the animals which
immediately succeed us in the scale, can be drawn between the animal
world and ourselves; and I may add the expression of my belief that the
attempt to draw a psychical distinction is equally futile, and that even the
highest faculties of feeling and of intellect begin to germinate in lower

forms of life.[32] At the same time, no one is more strongly convinced than I
am of the vastness of the gulf between civilized man and the brutes; or is
more certain that whether from them or not, he is assuredly not of them. No
one is less disposed to think lightly of the present dignity, or despairingly of
the future hopes, of the only consciously intelligent denizen of this world.
We are indeed told by those who assume authority in these matters, that the
two sets of opinions are incompatible, and that the belief in the unity of
origin of man and brutes involves the brutalization and degradation of the
former. But is this really so? Could not a sensible child confute, by obvious
arguments, the shallow rhetoricians who would force this conclusion upon
us? Is it, indeed, true, that the Poet, or the Philosopher, or the Artist whose
genius is the glory of his age, is degraded from his high estate by the
undoubted historical probability, not to say certainty, that he is the direct
descendant of some naked and bestial savage, whose intelligence was just
sufficient to make him a little more cunning than the Fox, and by so much
more dangerous than the Tiger? Or is he bound to howl and grovel on all
fours because of the wholly unquestionable fact, that he was once an egg,
which no ordinary power of discrimination could distinguish from that of a
Dog? Or is the philanthropist or the saint to give up his endeavours to lead a
noble life, because the simplest study of man’s nature reveals, at its
foundations, all the selfish passions and fierce appetites of the merest
quadruped? Is mother-love vile because a hen shows it, or fidelity base
because dogs possess it?
The common sense of the mass of mankind will answer these questions
without a moment’s hesitation. Healthy humanity, finding itself hard
pressed to escape from real sin and degradation, will leave the brooding
over speculative pollution to the cynics and the “righteous overmuch” who,
disagreeing in everything else, unite in blind insensibility to the nobleness
of the visible world, and in inability to appreciate the grandeur of the place
Man occupies therein.
Nay more, thoughtful men, once escaped from the blinding influences of
traditional prejudice, will find in the lowly stock whence man has sprung,
the best evidence of the splendour of his capacities; and will discern in his
long progress through the Past, a reasonable ground of faith in his
attainment of a nobler Future.

They will remember that in comparing civilized man with the animal world,
one is as the Alpine traveller, who sees the mountains soaring into the sky
and can hardly discern where the deep shadowed crags and roseate peaks
end, and where the clouds of heaven begin. Surely the awe-struck voyager
may be excused if, at first, he refuses to believe the geologist, who tells him
that these glorious masses are, after all, the hardened mud of primeval seas,
or the cooled slag of subterranean furnaces—of one substance with the
dullest clay, but raised by inward forces to that place of proud and
seemingly inaccessible glory.
But the geologist is right; and due reflection on his teachings, instead of
diminishing our reverence and our wonder, adds all the force of intellectual
sublimity to the mere æsthetic intuition of the uninstructed beholder.
And after passion and prejudice have died away, the same result will attend
the teachings of the naturalist respecting that great Alps and Andes of the
living world—Man. Our reverence for the nobility of manhood will not be
lessened by the knowledge, that Man is, in substance and in structure, one
with the brutes; for, he alone possesses the marvellous endowment of
intelligible and rational speech, whereby, in the secular period of his
existence, he has slowly accumulated and organized the experience which is
almost wholly lost with the cessation of every individual life in other
animals; so that now he stands raised upon it as on a mountain top, far
above the level of his humble fellows, and transfigured from his grosser
nature by reflecting, here and there, a ray from the infinite source of truth.

A succinct History of the Controversy respecting the Cerebral Structure of
Man and the Apes

Up to the year 1857 all anatomists of authority, who had occupied
themselves with the cerebral structure of the Apes—Cuvier, Tiedemann,
Sandifort, Vrolik, Isidore G. St. Hilaire, Schroeder van der Kolk, Gratiolet
—were agreed that the brain of the Apes possesses a posterior lobe.
Tiedemann, in 1825, figured and acknowledged in the text of his “Icones,”
the existence of the posterior cornu of the lateral ventricle in the Apes, not
only under the title of “Scrobiculus parvus loco cornu posterioris”—a fact

which has been paraded—but as “cornu posterius” (Icones, p. 54), a
circumstance which has been, as sedulously, kept in the back ground.
Cuvier (Lecons, T. iii. p. 103) says, “the anterior or lateral ventricles
possess a digital cavity [posterior cornu] only in Man and the Apes.... Its
presence depends on that of the posterior lobes.”
Schroeder van der Kolk and Vrolik, and Gratiolet, had also figured and
described the posterior cornu in various Apes. As to the Hippocampus Minor
Tiedemann had erroneously asserted its absence in the Apes; but Schroeder
van der Kolk and Vrolik had pointed out the existence of what they
considered a rudimentary one in the Chimpanzee, and Gratiolet had
expressly affirmed its existence in these animals. Such was the state of our
information on these subjects in the year 1856.
In the year 1857, however, Professor Owen, either in ignorance of these
well-known facts or else unjustifiably suppressing them, submitted to the
Linnæan Society a paper “On the Characters, Principles of Division, and
Primary Groups of the Class Mammalia,” which was printed in the
Society’s Journal, and contains the following passage:—“In Man, the brain
presents an ascensive step in development, higher and more strongly
marked than that by which the preceding subclass was distinguished from
the one below it. Not only do the cerebral hemispheres overlap the olfactory
lobes and cerebellum, but they extend in advance of the one and further
back than the other. The posterior development is so marked, that
anatomists have assigned to that part the character of a third lobe; it is
peculiar to the genus Homo, and equally peculiar is the posterior horn of
the lateral ventricle and the ‘hippocampus minor,’ which characterise the
hind lobe of each hemisphere.”—Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnæan
Society, Vol. ii. p. 19.
As the essay in which this passage stands had no less ambitious an aim than
the remodelling of the classification of the Mammalia, its author might be
supposed to have written under a sense of peculiar responsibility, and to
have tested, with especial care, the statements he ventured to promulgate.
And even if this be expecting too much, hastiness, or want of opportunity
for due deliberation, cannot now be pleaded in extenuation of any
shortcomings; for the propositions cited were repeated two years afterwards

in the Reade Lecture, delivered before so grave a body as the University of
Cambridge, in 1859.
When the assertions, which I have italicised in the above extract, first came
under my notice, I was not a little astonished at so flat a contradiction of the
doctrines current among well-informed anatomists; but, not unnaturally
imagining that the deliberate statements of a responsible person must have
some foundation in fact, I deemed it my duty to investigate the subject
anew before the time at which it would be my business to lecture thereupon
came round. The result of my inquiries was to prove that Mr. Owen’s three
assertions, that “the third lobe, the posterior horn of the lateral ventricle,
and the hippocampus minor,” are “peculiar to the genus Homo,” are
contrary to the plainest facts. I communicated this conclusion to the
students of my class; and then, having no desire to embark in a controversy
which could not redound to the honour of British science, whatever its
issue, I turned to more congenial occupations.
The time speedily arrived, however, when a persistence in this reticence
would have involved me in an unworthy paltering with truth.
At the meeting of the British Association at Oxford, in 1860, Professor
Owen repeated these assertions in my presence, and, of course, I
immediately gave them a direct and unqualified contradiction, pledging
myself to justify that unusual procedure elsewhere. I redeemed that pledge
by publishing, in the January number of the Natural History Review for
1861, an article wherein the truth of the three following propositions was
fully demonstrated (l. c. p. 71):—
“1. That the third lobe is neither peculiar to, nor characteristic of, man seeing that it exists
in all the higher quadrumana.”
“2. That the posterior cornu of the lateral ventricle is neither peculiar to, nor characteristic
of, man, inasmuch as it also exists in the higher quadrumana.”
“3. That the hippocampus minor is neither peculiar to, nor characteristic of, man, as it is
found in certain of the higher quadrumana.”

Furthermore, this paper contains the following paragraph (p. 76):
“And lastly, Schroeder van der Kolk and Vrolik (op. cit. p. 271), though they particularly
note that ‘the lateral ventricle is distinguished from that of Man by the very defective
proportions of the posterior cornu, wherein only a stripe is visible as an indication of the
hippocampus minor;’ yet the Figure 4, in their second Plate, shows that this posterior cornu

is a perfectly distinct and unmistakeable structure, quite as large as it often is in Man. It is
the more remarkable that Professor Owen should have overlooked the explicit statement
and figure of these authors, as it is quite obvious, on comparison of the figures, that his
woodcut of the brain of a Chimpanzee (l. c. p. 19) is a reduced copy of the second figure of
Messrs. Schroeder van der Kolk and Vrolik’s first Plate.
“As M. Gratiolet (l. c. p. 18), however, is careful to remark, ‘unfortunately the brain which
they have taken as a model was greatly altered (profondément affaissé), whence the general
form of the brain is given in these plates in a manner which is altogether incorrect.’ Indeed,
it is perfectly obvious, from a comparison of a section of the skull of the Chimpanzee with
these figures, that such is the case; and it is greatly to be regretted that so inadequate a
figure should have been taken as a typical representation of the Chimpanzee’s brain.”

From this time forth, the untenability of his position might have been as
apparent to Professor Owen as it was to every one else; but, so far from
retracting the grave errors into which he had fallen, Professor Owen has
persisted in and reiterated them; first, in a lecture delivered before the Royal
Institution on the 19th of March, 1861, which is admitted to have been
accurately reproduced in the “Athenæum” for the 23rd of the same month,
in a letter addressed by Professor Owen to that journal on the 30th of
March. The “Athenæum” report was accompanied by a diagram purporting
to represent a Gorilla’s brain, but in reality so extraordinary a
misrepresentation, that Professor Owen substantially, though not explicitly,
withdraws it in the letter in question. In amending this error, however,
Professor Owen fell into another of much graver import, as his
communication concludes with the following paragraph: “For the true
proportion in which the cerebrum covers the cerebellum in the highest
Apes, reference should be made to the figure of the undissected brain of the
Chimpanzee in my ‘Reade’s Lecture on the Classification, &c. of the
Mammalia,’ p. 25, fig. 7, 8vo. 1859.”
It would not be credible, if it were not unfortunately true, that this figure, to
which the trusting public is referred, without a word of qualification, “for
the true proportion in which the cerebrum covers the cerebellum in the
highest Apes,” is exactly that unacknowledged copy of Schroeder van der
Kolk and Vrolik’s figure whose utter inaccuracy had been pointed out years
before by Gratiolet, and had been brought to Professor Owen’s knowledge
by myself in the passage of my article in the “Natural History Review”
above quoted.

I drew public attention to this circumstance again in my reply to Professor
Owen, published in the “Athenæum” for April 13th, 1861; but the exploded
figure was reproduced once more by Professor Owen, without the slightest
allusion to its inaccuracy, in the “Annals of Natural History” for June 1861!
This proved too much for the patience of the original authors of the figure,
Messrs. Schroeder van der Kolk and Vrolik, who, in a note addressed to the
Academy of Amsterdam, of which they were members, declared themselves
to be, though decided opponents of all forms of the doctrine of progressive
development, above all things, lovers of truth: and that, therefore, at
whatever risk of seeming to lend support to views which they disliked, they
felt it their duty to take the first opportunity of publicly repudiating
Professor Owen’s misuse of their authority.
In this note they frankly admitted the justice of the criticisms of M.
Gratiolet, quoted above, and they illustrated, by new and careful figures, the
posterior lobe, the posterior cornu, and the hippocampus minor of the
Orang. Furthermore, having demonstrated the parts, at one of the sittings of
the Academy, they add, “la présence des parties contestées y a été
universellement reconnue par les anatomistes présents à la séance. Le seul
doute qui soit resté se rapporte au pes Hippocampi minor.... A l’état frais
l’indice du petit pied d’Hippocampe était plus prononcé que maintenant.”
Professor Owen repeated his erroneous assertions at the meeting of the
British Association in 1861, and again, without any obvious necessity, and
without adducing a single new fact or new argument, or being able in any
way to meet the crushing evidence from original dissections of numerous
Apes’ brains, which had in the meanwhile been brought forward by Prof.
Rolleston,[33] F.R.S., Mr. Marshall,[34] F.R.S., Mr. Flower,[35] Mr. Turner,[36]
and myself,[37] revived the subject at the Cambridge meeting of the same
body in 1862. Not content with the tolerably vigorous repudiation which
these unprecedented proceedings met with in Section D, Professor Owen
sanctioned the publication of a version of his own statements, accompanied
by a strange misrepresentation of mine (as may be seen by comparison of
the “Times” report of the discussion), in the “Medical Times” for October
11th, 1862. I subjoin the conclusion of my reply in the same journal for
October 25th.

“If this were a question of opinion, or a question of interpretation of parts or of terms,—
were it even a question of observation in which the testimony of my own senses alone was
pitted against that of another person, I should adopt a very different tone in discussing this
matter. I should, in all humility, admit the likelihood of having myself erred in judgment,
failed in knowledge, or been blinded by prejudice.
“But no one pretends now, that the controversy is one of terms or of opinions. Novel and
devoid of authority as some of Professor Owen’s proposed definitions may have been, they
might be accepted without changing the great features of the case. Hence, though special
investigations into these matters have been undertaken during the last two years by Dr.
Allen Thomson, by Dr. Rolleston, by Mr. Marshall, and by Mr. Flower, all, as you are
aware, anatomists of repute in this country, and by Professors Schroeder Van der Kolk, and
Vrolik (whom Professor Owen incautiously tried to press into his own service) on the
Continent, all these able and conscientious observers have with one accord testified to the
accuracy of my statements, and to the utter baselessness of the assertions of Professor
Owen. Even the venerable Rudolph Wagner, whom no man will accuse of progressionist
proclivities, has raised his voice on the same side; while not a single anatomist, great or
small, has supported Professor Owen.
“Now, I do not mean to suggest that scientific differences should be settled by universal
suffrage, but I do conceive that solid proofs must be met by something more than empty
and unsupported assertions. Yet during the two years through which this preposterous
controversy has dragged its weary length, Professor Owen has not ventured to bring
forward a single preparation in support of his often-repeated assertions.
“The case stands thus, therefore:—Not only are the statements made by me in consonance
with the doctrines of the best older authorities, and with those of all recent investigators,
but I am quite ready to demonstrate them on the first monkey that comes to hand; while
Professor Owen’s assertions are not only in diametrical opposition to both old and new
authorities, but he has not produced, and, I will add, cannot produce, a single preparation
which justifies them.”

I now leave this subject, for the present.—For the credit of my calling I
should be glad to be, hereafter, for ever silent upon it. But, unfortunately,
this is a matter upon which, after all that has occurred, no mistake or
confusion of terms is possible—and in affirming that the posterior lobe, the
posterior cornu, and the hippocampus minor exist in certain Apes, I am
stating either that which is true, or that which I must know to be false. The
question has thus become one of personal veracity. For myself, I will accept
no other issue than this, grave as it is, to the present controversy.

FOOTNOTES:
[25] It will be understood that, in the preceding Essay, I have selected for notice
from the vast mass of papers which have been written upon the man-like Apes,
only those which seem to me to be of special moment.

[26] We are not at present thoroughly acquainted with the brain of the Gorilla,
and therefore, in discussing cerebral characters, I shall take that of the
Chimpanzee as my highest term among the Apes.
[27] “More than once,” says Peter Camper, “have I met with more than six
lumbar vertebræ in man.... Once I found thirteen ribs and four lumbar vertebræ.”
Fallopius noted thirteen pair of ribs and only four lumbar vertebræ; and
Eustachius once found eleven dorsal vertebræ and six lumbar vertebræ.
—“Œuvres de Pierre Camper,” T. 1, p. 42. As Tyson states, his “Pygmie” had
thirteen pair of ribs and five lumbar vertebræ. The question of the curves of the
spinal column in the Apes requires further investigation.
[28] It has been affirmed that Hindoo crania sometimes contain as little as 27
ounces of water, which would give a capacity of about 46 cubic inches. The
minimum capacity which I have assumed above, however, is based upon the
valuable tables published by Professor R. Wagner in his “Vorstudien zu einer
wissenschaftlichen Morphologie und Physiologie des menschlichen Gehirns.”
As the result of the careful weighing of more than 900 human brains, Professor
Wagner states that one-half weighed between 1200 and 1400 grammes, and that
about two-ninths, consisting for the most part of male brains, exceed 1400
grammes. The lightest brain of an adult male, with sound mental faculties,
recorded by Wagner, weighed 1020 grammes. As a gramme equals 15.4 grains,
and a cubic inch of water contains 252.4 grains, this is equivalent to 62 cubic
inches of water; so that as brain is heavier than water, we are perfectly safe
against erring on the side of diminution in taking this as the smallest capacity of
any adult male human brain. The only adult male brain, weighing as little as 970
grammes, is that of an idiot; but the brain of an adult woman, against the
soundness of whose faculties nothing appears, weighed as little as 907 grammes
(55.3 cubic inches of water); and Reid gives an adult female brain of still smaller
capacity. The heaviest brain (1872 grammes, or about 115 cubic inches) was,
however, that of a woman; next to it comes the brain of Cuvier (1861 grammes),
then Byron (1807 grammes), and then an insane person (1783 grammes). The
lightest adult brain recorded (720 grammes) was that of an idiotic female. The
brains of five children, four years old, weighed between 1275 and 992 grammes.
So that it may be safely said, that an average European child of four years old
has a brain twice as large as that of an adult Gorilla.
[29] In speaking of the foot of his “Pygmie,” Tyson remarks, p. 13:—“But this
part in the formation and in its function too, being liker a Hand than a Foot: for
the distinguishing this sort of animals from others, I have thought whether it
might not be reckoned and called rather Quadrumanus than Quadrupes, i.e. a
four-handed rather than a four-footed animal.”
As this passage was published in 1699, M. I. G. St. Hilaire is clearly in error in
ascribing the invention of the term “quadrumanous” to Buffon, though
“bimanous” may belong to him. Tyson uses “Quadrumanus” in several places, as
at p. 91.... “Our Pygmie is no Man, nor yet the common Ape, but a sort of Animal
between both; and though a Biped, yet of the Quadrumanus-kind: though some
Men too have been observed to use their Feet like Hands, as I have seen
several.”

[30] See the note at the end of this essay for a succinct history of the controversy
to which allusion is here made.
[31] I say help to furnish: for I by no means believe that it was any original
difference of cerebral quality, or quantity, which caused that divergence between
the human and the pithecoid stirpes, which has ended in the present enormous
gulf between them. It is no doubt perfectly true, in a certain sense, that all
difference of function is a result of difference of structure; or, in other words, of
difference in the combination of the primary molecular forces of living
substance; and, starting from this undeniable axiom, objectors occasionally, and
with much seeming plausibility, argue that the vast intellectual chasm between
the Ape and Man implies a corresponding structural chasm in the organs of the
intellectual functions; so that, it is said, the non-discovery of such vast
differences proves, not that they are absent, but that Science is incompetent to
detect them. A very little consideration, however, will, I think, show the fallacy
of this reasoning. Its validity hangs upon the assumption, that intellectual power
depends altogether on the brain—whereas the brain is only one condition out of
many on which intellectual manifestations depend; the others being, chiefly, the
organs of the senses and the motor apparatuses, especially those which are
concerned in prehension and in the production of articulate speech.
A man born dumb, notwithstanding his great cerebral mass and his inheritance of
strong intellectual instincts, would be capable of few higher intellectual
manifestations than an Orang or a Chimpanzee, if he were confined to the
society of dumb associates. And yet there might not be the slightest discernible
difference between his brain and that of a highly intelligent and cultivated
person. The dumbness might be the result of a defective structure of the mouth,
or of the tongue, or a mere defective innervation of these parts; or it might result
from congenital deafness, caused by some minute defect of the internal ear,
which only a careful anatomist could discover.
The argument, that because there is an immense difference between a Man’s
intelligence and an Ape’s, therefore, there must be an equally immense
difference between their brains, appears to me to be about as well based as the
reasoning by which one should endeavour to prove that, because there is a “great
gulf” between a watch that keeps accurate time and another that will not go at
all, there is therefore a great structural hiatus between the two watches. A hair in
the balance-wheel, a little rust on a pinion, a bend in a tooth of the escapement, a
something so slight that only the practised eye of the watchmaker can discover
it, may be the source of all the difference.
And believing, as I do, with Cuvier, that the possession of articulate speech is
the grand distinctive character of man (whether it be absolutely peculiar to him
or not), I find it very easy to comprehend, that some equally inconspicuous
structural difference may have been the primary cause of the immeasurable and
practically infinite divergence of the Human from the Simian Stirps.
[32] It is so rare a pleasure for me to find Professor Owen’s opinions in entire
accordance with my own, that I cannot forbear from quoting a paragraph which
appeared in his Essay “On the Characters, &c., of the Class Mammalia,” in the
“Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London” for 1857, but is
unaccountably omitted in the “Reade Lecture” delivered before the University of

Cambridge two years later, which is otherwise nearly a reprint of the paper in
question. Prof. Owen writes:

“Not being able to appreciate or conceive of the distinction between the
psychical phenomena of a Chimpanzee and of a Boschisman or of an
Aztec, with arrested brain growth, as being of a nature so essential as to
preclude a comparison between them, or as being other than a difference
of degree, I cannot shut my eyes to the significance of that all-pervading
similitude of structure—every tooth, every bone, strictly homologous—
which makes the determination of the difference between Homo and
Pithecus the anatomist’s difficulty.”

Surely it is a little singular that the “anatomist,” who finds it “difficult” to
“determine the difference” between Homo and Pithecus, should yet range them
on anatomical grounds, in distinct sub-classes!
[33] On the Affinities of the Brain of the Orang. Nat. Hist. Review, April, 1861.
[34] On the Brain of a young Chimpanzee. Ibid., July, 1861.
[35] On the Posterior lobes of the Cerebrum of the Quadrumana. Philosophical
Transactions, 1862.
[36] On the anatomical Relations of the Surfaces of the Tentorium to the
Cerebrum and Cerebellum in Man and the lower Mammals. Proceedings of the
Royal Society of Edinburgh, March, 1862.
[37] On the Brain of Ateles. Proceedings of Zoological Society, 1861.

III

ON SOME FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN.
I have endeavoured to show, in the preceding Essay, that the Anthropini, or
Man Family, form a very well defined group of the Primates, between
which and the immediately following Family, the Catarhini, there is, in the
existing world, the same entire absence of any transitional form or
connecting link, as between the Catarhini and Platyrhini.
It is a commonly received doctrine, however, that the structural intervals
between the various existing modifications of organic beings may be
diminished, or even obliterated, if we take into account the long and varied
succession of animals and plants which have preceded these now living and
which are known to us only by their fossilized remains. How far this
doctrine is well based, how far, on the other hand, as our knowledge at
present stands, it is an overstatement of the real facts of the case, and an
exaggeration of the conclusions fairly deducible from them, are points of
grave importance, but into the discussion of which I do not, at present,
propose to enter. It is enough that such a view of the relations of extinct to
living beings has been propounded, to lead us to inquire, with anxiety, how
far the recent discoveries of human remains in a fossil state bear out, or
oppose, that view.
I shall confine myself, in discussing this question, to those fragmentary
Human skulls from the caves of Engis in the valley of the Meuse, in
Belgium, and of the Neanderthal near Düsseldorf, the geological relations
of which have been examined with so much care by Sir Charles Lyell; upon
whose high authority I shall take it for granted, that the Engis skull
belonged to a contemporary of the Mammoth (Elephas primigenius) and of
the woolly Rhinoceros (Rhinocerus tichorhinus), with the bones of which it
was found associated; and that the Neanderthal skull is of great, though
uncertain, antiquity. Whatever be the geological age of the latter skull, I
conceive it is quite safe (on the ordinary principles of paleontological

reasoning) to assume that the former takes us to, at least, the further side of
the vague biological limit, which separates the present geological epoch
from that which immediately preceded it. And there can be no doubt that
the physical geography of Europe has changed wonderfully, since the bones
of Men and Mammoths, Hyænas and Rhinoceroses were washed pell-mell
into the cave of Engis.
The skull from the cave of Engis was originally discovered by Professor
Schmerling, and was described by him, together with other human remains
disinterred at the same time, in his valuable work, “Recherches sur les
ossemens fossiles découverts dans les cavernes de la Province de Liège,”
published in 1833 (p. 59, et seq.), from which the following paragraphs are
extracted, the precise expressions of the author being, as far as possible,
preserved.
“In the first place, I must remark that these human remains, which are in my possession,
are characterized, like the thousands of bones which I have lately been disinterring, by the
extent of the decomposition which they have undergone, which is precisely the same as
that of the extinct species: all, with a few exceptions, are broken; some few are rounded, as
is frequently found to be the case in fossil remains of other species. The fractures are
vertical or oblique; none of them are eroded; their colour does not differ from that of other
fossil bones, and varies from whitish yellow to blackish. All are lighter than recent bones,
with the exception of those which have a calcareous incrustation, and the cavities of which
are filled with such matter.
“The cranium which I have caused to be figured, Plate I., figs. 1, 2, is that of an old person.
The sutures are beginning to be effaced: all the facial bones are wanting, and of the
temporal bones only a fragment of that of the right side is preserved.

Fig. 22.—The skull from the cave of Engis—viewed from the right side. a, glabella, b,
occipital protuberance, (a to b glabello-occipital line), c, auditory foramen.

“The face and the base of the cranium had been detached before the skull was deposited in
the cave, for we were unable to find those parts, though the whole cavern was regularly
searched. The cranium was met with at a depth of a metre and a half [five feet nearly]
hidden under an osseous breccia, composed of the remains of small animals, and
containing one rhinoceros tusk, with several teeth of horses and of ruminants. This breccia,
which has been spoken of above (p. 30), was a metre [31⁄4 feet about] wide, and rose to the
height of a metre and a half above the floor of the cavern, to the walls of which it adhered
strongly.
“The earth which contained this human skull exhibited no trace of disturbance: teeth of
rhinoceros, horse, hyæna, and bear, surrounded it on all sides.

“The famous Blumenbach[38] has directed attention to the differences presented by the
form and the dimensions of human crania of different races. This important work would
have assisted us greatly, if the face, a part essential for the determination of race, with more
or less accuracy, had not been wanting in our fossil cranium.
“We are convinced that even if the skull had been complete, it would not have been
possible to pronounce, with certainty, upon a single specimen; for individual variations are
so numerous in the crania of one and the same race, that one cannot, without laying oneself
open to large chances of error, draw any inference from a single fragment of a cranium to
the general form of the head to which it belonged.

“Nevertheless, in order to neglect no point respecting the form of this fossil skull, we may
observe that, from the first, the elongated and narrow form of the forehead attracted our
attention.
“In fact, the slight elevation of the frontal, its narrowness, and the form of the orbit,
approximate it more nearly to the cranium of an Ethiopian than to that of an European: the
elongated form and the produced occiput are also characters which we believe to be
observable in our fossil cranium; but to remove all doubt upon that subject I have caused
the contours of the cranium of an European and of an Ethiopian to be drawn and the
foreheads represented. Plate II., Figs. 1 and 2, and, in the same plate, Figs. 3 and 4, will
render the differences easily distinguishable; and a single glance at the figures, will be
more instructive than a long and wearisome description.
“At whatever conclusion we may arrive as to the origin of the man from whence this fossil
skull proceeded, we may express an opinion without exposing ourselves to a fruitless
controversy. Each may adopt the hypothesis which seems to him most probable: for my
own part, I hold it to be demonstrated that this cranium has belonged to a person of limited
intellectual faculties, and we conclude thence that it belonged to a man of a low degree of
civilization: a deduction which is borne out by contrasting the capacity of the frontal with
that of the occipital region.
“Another cranium of a young individual was discovered in the floor of the cavern beside
the tooth of an elephant; the skull was entire when found, but the moment it was lifted it
fell into pieces, which I have not, as yet, been able to put together again. But I have
represented the bones of the upper jaw, Plate I., Fig. 5. The state of the alveoli and the
teeth, shows that the molars had not yet pierced the gum. Detached milk molars and some
fragments of a human skull, proceed from this same place. The Figure 3, represents a
human superior incisor tooth, the size of which is truly remarkable.[39]
“Figure 4 is a fragment of a superior maxillary bone, the molar teeth of which are worn
down to the roots.
“I possess two vertebræ, a first and last dorsal.
“A clavicle of the left side (see Plate III., Fig. 1); although it belonged to a young
individual, this bone shows that he must have been of great stature.[40]
“Two fragments of the radius, badly preserved, do not indicate that the height of the man,
to whom they belonged, exceeded five feet and a half.
“As to the remains of the upper extremities, those which are in my possession, consist
merely of a fragment of an ulna and of a radius (Plate III., Fig. 5 and 6).
“Figure 2, Plate IV., represents a metacarpal bone, contained in the breccia, of which we
have spoken; it was found in the lower part above the cranium: add to this some metacarpal
bones, found at very different distances, half-a-dozen metatarsals, three phalanges of the
hand, and one of the foot.
“This is a brief enumeration of the remains of human bones collected in the cavern of
Engis, which has preserved for us the remains of three individuals, surrounded by those of
the Elephant, of the Rhinoceros, and of Carnivora of species unknown in the present
creation.”

From the cave of Engihoul, opposite that of Engis, on the right bank of the
Meuse, Schmerling obtained the remains of three other individuals of Man,
among which were only two fragments of parietal bones, but many bones of
the extremities. In one case, a broken fragment of an ulna was soldered to a
like fragment of a radius by stalagmite, a condition frequently observed
among the bones of the Cave Bear (Ursus spelæus), found in the Belgian
caverns.
It was in the cavern of Engis that Professor Schmerling found, incrusted
with stalagmite and joined to a stone, the pointed bone implement, which he
has figured in Fig. 7 of his Plate XXXVI., and worked flints were found by
him in all those Belgian caves, which contained an abundance of fossil
bones.
A short letter from M. Geoffroy St. Hilaire, published in the Comptes
Rendus of the Academy of Sciences of Paris, for July 2nd, 1838, speaks of a
visit (and apparently a very hasty one) paid to the collection of Professor
“Schermidt” (which is presumably a misprint for Schmerling) at Liège. The
writer briefly criticises the drawings which illustrate Schmerling’s work,
and affirms that the “human cranium is a little longer than it is represented”
in Schmerling’s figure. The only other remark worth quoting is this:—“The
aspect of the human bones differs little from that of the cave bones, with
which we are familiar, and of which there is a considerable collection in the
same place. With respect to their special forms, compared with those of the
varieties of recent human crania, few certain conclusions can be put
forward; for much greater differences exist between the different specimens
of well-characterized varieties, than between the fossil cranium of Liège
and that of one of those varieties selected as a term of comparison.”
Geoffroy St. Hilaire’s remarks are, it will be observed, little but an echo of
the philosophic doubts of the describer and discoverer of the remains. As to
the critique upon Schmerling’s figures, I find that the side view given by the
latter is really about 3⁄10ths of an inch shorter than the original, and that the
front view is diminished to about the same extent. Otherwise the
representation is not, in any way, inaccurate, but corresponds very well with
the cast which is in my possession.

A piece of the occipital bone, which Schmerling seems to have missed, has
since been fitted on to the rest of the cranium by an accomplished
anatomist, Dr. Spring of Liège, under whose direction an excellent plaster
cast was made for Sir Charles Lyell. It is upon and from a duplicate of that
cast that my own observations and the accompanying figures, the outlines
of which are copied from very accurate Camera lucida drawings, by my
friend Mr. Busk, reduced to one-half of the natural size, are made.
As Professor Schmerling observes, the base of the skull is destroyed, and
the facial bones are entirely absent; but the roof of the cranium, consisting
of the frontal, parietal, and the greater part of the occipital bones, as far as
the middle of the occipital foramen, is entire or nearly so. The left temporal
bone is wanting. Of the right temporal, the parts in the immediate
neighbourhood of the auditory foramen, the mastoid process, and a
considerable portion of the squamous element of the temporal are well
preserved (Fig. 22).
The lines of fracture which remain between the coadjusted pieces of the
skull, and are faithfully displayed in Schmerling’s figure, are readily
traceable in the cast. The sutures are also discernible, but the complex
disposition of their serrations, shown in the figure, is not obvious in the
cast. Though the ridges which give attachment to muscles are not
excessively prominent, they are well marked, and taken together with the
apparently well developed frontal sinuses, and the condition of the sutures,
leave no doubt on my mind that the skull is that of an adult, if not middle-
aged man.
The extreme length of the skull is 7.7 inches. Its extreme breadth, which
corresponds very nearly with the interval between the parietal
protuberances, is not more than 5.4 inches. The proportion of the length to
the breadth is therefore very nearly as 100 to 70. If a line be drawn from the
point at which the brow curves in towards the root of the nose, and which is
called the “glabella” (a), (Fig. 22), to the occipital protuberance (b), and the
distance to the highest point of the arch of the skull be measured
perpendicularly from this line, it will be found to be 4.75 inches. Viewed
from above, Fig. 23, A, the forehead presents an evenly rounded curve, and
passes into the contour of the sides and back of the skull, which describes a
tolerably regular elliptical curve.

The front view (Fig. 23, B) shows that the roof of the skull was very
regularly and elegantly arched in the transverse direction, and that the
transverse diameter was a little less below the parietal protuberances, than
above them. The forehead cannot be called narrow in relation to the rest of
the skull, nor can it be called a retreating forehead; on the contrary, the
antero-posterior contour of the skull is well arched, so that the distance
along that contour, from the nasal depression to the occipital protuberance,
measures about 13.75 inches. The transverse arc of the skull, measured
from one auditory foramen to the other, across the middle of the sagittal
suture, is about 13 inches. The sagittal suture itself is 5.5 inches long.
The supraciliary prominences or brow-ridges (on each side of a, Fig. 22)
are well, but not excessively, developed, and are separated by a median
depression. Their principal elevation is disposed so obliquely that I judge
them to be due to large frontal sinuses.
If a line joining the glabella and the occipital protuberance (a, b, Fig. 22) be
made horizontal, no part of the occipital region projects more than 1⁄10th an
inch behind the posterior extremity of that line, and the upper edge of the
auditory foramen (c) is almost in contact with a line drawn parallel with this
upon the outer surface of the skull.
A transverse line drawn from one auditory foramen to the other traverses, as
usual, the forepart of the occipital foramen. The capacity of the interior of
this fragmentary skull has not been ascertained.

Fig. 23.—The Engis skull viewed from above (A)
and in front (B).

The history of the Human remains from the cavern in the Neanderthal may best
be given in the words of their original describer, Dr. Schaaffhausen,[41] as
translated by Mr. Busk.
“In the early part of the year 1857, a human skeleton was discovered in a
limestone cave in the Neanderthal, near Hochdal, between Düsseldorf and
Elberfeld. Of this, however, I was unable to procure more than a plaster cast of
the cranium, taken at Elberfeld, from which I drew up an account of its
remarkable conformation, which was, in the first instance, read on the 4th of

February, 1857, at the meeting of the Lower Rhine Medical and Natural History
Society, at Bonn.[42] Subsequently Dr. Fuhlrott, to whom science is indebted for
the preservation of these bones, which were not at first regarded as human, and
into whose possession they afterwards came, brought the cranium from Elberfeld
to Bonn, and entrusted it to me for more accurate anatomical examination. At the
General Meeting of the Natural History Society of Prussian Rhineland and
Westphalia, at Bonn, on the 2nd of June, 1857,[43] Dr. Fuhlrott himself gave a full
account of the locality, and of the circumstances under which the discovery was
made. He was of opinion that the bones might be regarded as fossil; and in
coming to this conclusion, he laid especial stress upon the existence of dendritic
deposits, with which their surface was covered, and which were first noticed upon
them by Professor Mayer. To this communication I appended a brief report on the
results of my anatomical examination of the bones. The conclusions at which I
arrived were:—1st. That the extraordinary form of the skull was due to a natural
conformation hitherto not known to exist, even in the most barbarous races. 2nd.
That these remarkable human remains belonged to a period antecedent to the time
of the Celts and Germans, and were in all probability derived from one of the wild
races of Northwestern Europe, spoken of by Latin writers; and which were
encountered as autochthones by the German immigrants. And 3rdly. That it was
beyond doubt that these human relics were traceable to a period at which the
latest animals of the diluvium still existed; but that no proof of this assumption,
nor consequently of their so-termed fossil condition, was afforded by the
circumstances under which the bones were discovered.”
As Dr. Fuhlrott has not yet published his description of these circumstances, I
borrow the following account of them from one of his letters. “A small cave or
grotto, high enough to admit a man, and about 15 feet deep from the entrance,
which is 7 or 8 feet wide, exists in the southern wall of the gorge of the
Neanderthal, as it is termed, at a distance of about 100 feet from the Düssel, and
about 60 feet above the bottom of the valley. In its earlier and uninjured
condition, this cavern opened upon a narrow plateau lying in front of it, and from
which the rocky wall descended almost perpendicularly into the river. It could be
reached, though with difficulty, from above. The uneven floor was covered to a
thickness of 4 or 5 feet with a deposit of mud, sparingly intermixed with rounded
fragments of chert. In the removing of this deposit, the bones were discovered.
The skull was first noticed, placed nearest to the entrance of the cavern; and
further in, the other bones, lying in the same horizontal plane. Of this I was
assured, in the most positive terms, by two labourers who were employed to clear
out the grotto, and who were questioned by me on the spot. At first no idea was
entertained of the bones being human; and it was not till several weeks after their

discovery that they were recognised as such by me, and placed in security. But, as
the importance of the discovery was not at the time perceived, the labourers were
very careless in the collecting, and secured chiefly only the larger bones; and to
this circumstance it may be attributed that fragments merely of the probably
perfect skeleton came into my possession.”
My anatomical examination of these bones afforded the following results:—
The cranium is of unusual size, and of a long elliptical form. A most remarkable
peculiarity is at once obvious in the extraordinary development of the frontal
sinuses, owing to which the superciliary ridges, which coalesce completely in the
middle, are rendered so prominent, that the frontal bone exhibits a considerable
hollow or depression above, or rather behind them, whilst a deep depression is
also formed in the situation of the root of the nose. The forehead is narrow and
low, though the middle and hinder portions of the cranial arch are well developed.
Unfortunately, the fragment of the skull that has been preserved consists only of
the portion situated above the roof of the orbits and the superior occipital ridges,
which are greatly developed, and almost conjoined so as to form a horizontal
eminence. It includes almost the whole of the frontal bone, both parietals, a small
part of the squamous and the upper-third of the occipital. The recently fractured
surfaces show that the skull was broken at the time of its disinterment. The cavity
holds 16,876 grains of water, whence its cubical contents may be estimated at
57.64 inches, or 1033.24 cubic centimetres. In making this estimation, the water
is supposed to stand on a level with the orbital plate of the frontal, with the
deepest notch in the squamous margin of the parietal, and with the superior
semicircular ridges of the occipital. Estimated in dried millet-seed, the contents
equalled 31 ounces, Prussian Apothecaries’ weight. The semicircular line
indicating the upper boundary of the attachment of the temporal muscle, though
not very strongly marked, ascends nevertheless to more than half the height of the
parietal bone. On the right superciliary ridge is observable an oblique furrow or
depression, indicative of an injury received during life.[44] The coronal and
sagittal sutures are on the exterior nearly closed, and on the inside so completely
ossified as to have left no traces whatever, whilst the lambdoidal remains quite
open. The depressions for the Pacchionian glands are deep and numerous; and
there is an unusually deep vascular groove immediately behind the coronal suture,
which, as it terminates in a foramen, no doubt transmitted a vena emissaria. The
course of the frontal suture is indicated externally by a slight ridge; and where it
joins the coronal, this ridge rises into a small protuberance. The course of the
sagittal suture is grooved, and above the angle of the occipital bone the parietals
are depressed.

mm.[45]
The length of the skull from the
nasal process of the frontal over
the vertex to the superior 303 (300) = 12.0″.
semicircular lines of the
occipital measures
Circumference over the orbital
ridges and the superior
590 (590) = 23.37″ or 23″.
semicircular lines of the
occipital
Width of the frontal from the
middle of the temporal line on
one side to the
same point on the opposite 104 (114) = 4.1″-4.5″.
Length of the frontal from the
nasal process to the coronal 133 (125) = 5.25″-5″.
suture
Extreme width of the frontal
25 (23) = 1.0″-0.9″.
sinuses
Vertical height above a line
joining the deepest notches in
70 = 2.75″.
the squamous border of the
parietals
Width of hinder part of skull
from one parietal protuberance 138 (150) = 5.4″-5.9″.
to the other
Distance from the upper angle of
the occipital to the superior 51 (60) = 1.9″-2.4″.
semicircular lines
Thickness of the bone at the
8.
parietal protuberance
—— at the angle of the occipital 9.
—— at the superior semicircular
10 = 0.3″.
line of the occipital

Besides the cranium, the following bones have been secured:—

1. Both thigh-bones, perfect. These, like the skull, and all the other bones, are
characterized by their unusual thickness, and the great development of all the
elevations and depressions for the attachment of muscles. In the Anatomical
Museum at Bonn, under the designation of “Giant’s-bones,” are some recent
thigh-bones, with which in thickness the foregoing pretty nearly correspond,
although they are shorter.

Giant’s bones. Fossil bones.
mm. mm.
Length 542 = 21.4″ 438 = 17.4″
Diameter of head of femur 54 = 2.14″ 53 = 2.0″
„ of lower articular end, from
one condyle to the other 89 = 3.5″ 87 = 3.4″
Diameter of femur in the middle 33 = 1.2″ 30 = 1.1″

2. A perfect right humerus, whose size shows that it belongs to the thigh-bones.

mm.
Length 312= 12.3″
Thickness in the middle 26= 1.0″
Diameter of head 49= 1.9″

Also a perfect right radius of corresponding dimensions, and the upper-third of a
right ulna corresponding to the humerus and radius.
3. A left humerus, of which the upper-third is wanting, and which is so much
slenderer than the right as apparently to belong to a distinct individual; a left ulna,
which, though complete, is pathologically deformed, the coronoid process being
so much enlarged by bony growth, that flexure of the elbow beyond a right angle
must have been impossible; the anterior fossa of the humerus for the reception of
the coronoid process being also filled up with a similar bony growth. At the same
time, the olecranon is curved strongly downwards. As the bone presents no sign
of rachitic degeneration, it may be supposed that an injury sustained during life
was the cause of the anchylosis. When the left ulna is compared with the right
radius, it might at first sight be concluded that the bones respectively belonged to
different individuals, the ulna being more than half an inch too short for
articulation with a corresponding radius. But it is clear that this shortening, as
well as the attenuation of the left humerus, are both consequent upon the
pathological condition above described.

4. A left ilium, almost perfect, and belonging to the femur; a fragment of the right
scapula; the anterior extremity of a rib of the right side; and the same part of a rib
of the left side; the hinder part of a rib of the right side; and, lastly, two hinder
portions and one middle portion of ribs, which, from their unusually rounded
shape, and abrupt curvature, more resemble the ribs of a carnivorous animal than
those of a man. Dr. H. v. Meyer, however, to whose judgment I defer, will not
venture to declare them to be ribs of any animal; and it only remains to suppose
that this abnormal condition has arisen from an unusually powerful development
of the thoracic muscles.
The bones adhere strongly to the tongue, although, as proved by the use of
hydrochloric acid, the greater part of the cartilage is still retained in them, which
appears, however, to have undergone that transformation into gelatine which has
been observed by v. Bibra in fossil bones. The surface of all the bones is in many
spots covered with minute black specks, which, more especially under a lens, are
seen to be formed of very delicate dendrites. These deposits, which were first
observed on the bones by Dr. Meyer, are most distinct on the inner surface of the
cranial bones. They consist of a ferruginous compound, and, from their black
colour, may be supposed to contain manganese. Similar dendritic formations also
occur, not unfrequently, on laminated rocks, and are usually found in minute
fissures and cracks. At the meeting of the Lower Rhine Society at Bonn, on the
1st April, 1857, Prof. Meyer stated that he had noticed in the museum of
Poppelsdorf similar dendritic crystallizations on several fossil bones of animals,
and particularly on those of Ursus spelæus, but still more abundantly and
beautifully displayed on the fossil bones and teeth of Equus adamiticus, Elephas
primigenius, &c., from the caves of Bolve and Sundwig. Faint indications of
similar dendrites were visible in a Roman skull from Siegburg; whilst other
ancient skulls, which had lain for centuries in the earth, presented no trace of
them.[46] I am indebted to H. v. Meyer for the following remarks on this subject:
—
“The incipient formation of dendritic deposits, which were formerly regarded as a sign of a truly
fossil condition, is interesting. It has even been supposed that in diluvial deposits the presence of
dendrites might be regarded as affording a certain mark of distinction between bones mixed with
the diluvium at a somewhat later period and the true diluvial relics, to which alone it was
supposed that these deposits were confined. But I have long been convinced that neither can the
absence of dendrites be regarded as indicative of recent age, nor their presence as sufficient to
establish the great antiquity of the objects upon which they occur. I have myself noticed upon
paper, which could scarcely be more than a year old, dendritic deposits, which could not be
distinguished from those on fossil bones. Thus I possess a dog’s skull from the Roman colony of
the neighbouring Heddersheim, Castrum Hadrianum, which is in no way distinguishable from the
fossil bones from the Frankish caves; it presents the same colour, and adheres to the tongue just as
they do; so that this character also, which, at a former meeting of German naturalists at Bonn,
gave rise to amusing scenes between Buckland and Schmerling, is no longer of any value. In

disputed cases, therefore, the condition of the bone can scarcely afford the means for determining
with certainty whether it be fossil, that is to say, whether it belong to geological antiquity or to the
historical period.”

As we cannot now look upon the primitive world as representing a wholly
different condition of things, from which no transition exists to the organic life of
the present time, the designation of fossil, as applied to a bone, has no longer the
sense it conveyed in the time of Cuvier. Sufficient grounds exist for the
assumption that man coexisted with the animals found in the diluvium; and many
a barbarous race may, before all historical time, have disappeared, together with
the animals of the ancient world, whilst the races whose organization is improved
have continued the genus. The bones which form the subject of this paper present
characters which, although not decisive as regards a geological epoch, are,
nevertheless, such as indicate a very high antiquity. It may also be remarked that,
common as is the occurrence of diluvial animal bones in the muddy deposits of
caverns, such remains have not hitherto been met with in the caves of the
Neanderthal; and that the bones, which were covered by a deposit of mud not
more than four or five feet thick, and without any protective covering of
stalagmite, have retained the greatest part of their organic substance.
These circumstances might be adduced against the probability of a geological
antiquity. Nor should we be justified in regarding the cranial conformation as
perhaps representing the most savage primitive type of the human race, since
crania exist among living savages, which, though not exhibiting such a
remarkable conformation of the forehead, which gives the skull somewhat the
aspect of that of the large apes, still in other respects, as for instance in the greater
depth of the temporal fossæ, the crest-like, prominent temporal ridges, and a
generally less capacious cranial cavity, exhibit an equally low stage of
development. There is no reason for supposing that the deep frontal hollow is due
to any artificial flattening, such as is practised in various modes by barbarous
nations in the Old and New World. The skull is quite symmetrical, and shows no
indication of counter-pressure at the occiput, whilst, according to Morton, in the
Flat-heads of the Columbia, the frontal and parietal bones are always
unsymmetrical. Its conformation exhibits the sparing development of the anterior
part of the head which has been so often observed in very ancient crania, and
affords one of the most striking proofs of the influence of culture and civilization
on the form of the human skull.
In a subsequent passage, Dr. Schaaffhausen remarks:
“There is no reason whatever for regarding the unusual development of the frontal sinuses in the
remarkable skull from the Neanderthal as an individual or pathological deformity; it is
unquestionably a typical race-character, and is physiologically connected with the uncommon

thickness of the other bones of the skeleton, which exceeds by about one-half the usual
proportions. This expansion of the frontal sinuses, which are appendages of the air-passages, also
indicates an unusual force and power of endurance in the movements of the body, as may be
concluded from the size of all the ridges and processes for the attachment of the muscles or bones.
That this conclusion may be drawn from the existence of large frontal sinuses, and a prominence
of the lower frontal region, is confirmed in many ways by other observations. By the same
characters, according to Pallas, the wild horse is distinguished from the domesticated, and,
according to Cuvier, the fossil cave-bear from every recent species of bear, whilst, according to
Roulin, the pig, which has become wild in America, and regained a resemblance to the wild boar,
is thus distinguished from the same animal in the domesticated state, as is the chamois from the
goat; and, lastly, the bull-dog, which is characterised by its large bones and strongly-developed
muscles from every other kind of dog. The estimation of the facial angle, the determination of
which, according to Professor Owen, is also difficult in the great apes, owing to the very
prominent supra-orbital ridges, in the present case is rendered still more difficult from the absence
both of the auditory opening and of the nasal spine. But if the proper horizontal position of the
skull be taken from the remaining portions of the orbital plates, and the ascending line made to
touch the surface of the frontal bone behind the prominent supra-orbital ridges, the facial angle is
not found to exceed 56°.[47] Unfortunately, no portions of the facial bones, whose conformation is
so decisive as regards the form and expression of the head, have been preserved. The cranial
capacity, compared with the uncommon strength of the corporeal frame, would seem to indicate a
small cerebral development. The skull, as it is, holds about 31 ounces of millet-seed; and as, from
the proportionate size of the wanting bones, the whole cranial cavity should have about 6 ounces
more added, the contents, were it perfect, may be taken at 37 ounces. Tiedemann assigns, as the
cranial contents in the Negro, 40, 38, and 35 ounces. The cranium holds rather more than 36
ounces of water, which corresponds to a capacity of 1033.24 cubic centimetres. Huschke estimates
the cranial contents of a Negress at 1127 cubic centimetres; of an old Negro at 1146 cubic
centimetres. The capacity of the Malay skulls, estimated by water, equalled 36, 33 ounces, whilst
in the diminutive Hindoos it falls to as little as 27 ounces.”

After comparing the Neanderthal cranium with many others, ancient and modern,
Professor Schaaffhausen concludes thus:—
“But the human bones and cranium from the Neanderthal exceed all the rest in those peculiarities
of conformation which lead to the conclusion of their belonging to a barbarous and savage race.
Whether the cavern in which they were found, unaccompanied with any trace of human art, were
the place of their interment, or whether, like the bones of extinct animals elsewhere, they had been
washed into it, they may still be regarded as the most ancient memorial of the early inhabitants of
Europe.”

Mr. Busk, the translator of Dr. Schaaffhausen’s paper, has enabled us to form a
very vivid conception of the degraded character of the Neanderthal skull, by
placing side by side with its outline, that of the skull of a Chimpanzee, drawn to
the same absolute size.

Some time after the publication of the translation of Professor Schaaffhausen’s
Memoir, I was led to study the cast of the Neanderthal cranium with more
attention than I had previously bestowed upon it, in consequence of wishing to

supply Sir Charles Lyell with a diagram, exhibiting the special peculiarities of this
skull, as compared with other human skulls. In order to do this it was necessary to
identify, with precision, those points in the skulls compared which corresponded
anatomically. Of these points, the glabella was obvious enough; but when I had
distinguished another, defined by the occipital protuberance and superior
semicircular line, and had placed the outline of the Neanderthal skull against that
of the Engis skull, in such a position that the glabella and occipital protuberance
of both were intersected by the same straight line, the difference was so vast and
the flattening of the Neanderthal skull so prodigious (compare Figs. 22 and 24,
A), that I at first imagined I must have fallen into some error. And I was the more
inclined to suspect this, as, in ordinary human skulls, the occipital protuberance
and superior semicircular curved line on the exterior of the occiput correspond
pretty closely with the “lateral sinuses” and the line of attachment of the
tentorium internally. But on the tentorium rests, as I have said in the preceding
Essay, the posterior lobe of the brain; and hence, the occipital protuberance, and
the curved line in question, indicate, approximately, the lower limits of that lobe.
Was it possible for a human being to have the brain thus flattened and depressed;
or, on the other hand, had the muscular ridges shifted their position? In order to
solve these doubts, and to decide the question whether the great supraciliary
projections did, or did not, arise from the development of the frontal sinuses, I
requested Sir Charles Lyell to be so good as to obtain for me from Dr. Fuhlrott,
the possessor of the skull, answers to certain queries, and if possible a cast, or at
any rate drawings, or photographs, of the interior of the skull.

Fig. 24.—The skull from the Neanderthal cavern. A. side, B.
front, and C. top view. One-third the natural size. The
outlines from camera lucida drawings, one-half the natural
size, by Mr. Busk: the details from the cast and from Dr.
Fuhlrott’s photographs. a, glabella; b, occipital
protuberance; d, lambdoidal suture.

Dr. Fuhlrott replied, with a courtesy and readiness for which I am infinitely
indebted to him, to my inquiries, and furthermore sent three excellent
photographs. One of these gives a side view of the skull, and from it Fig. 24, A.
has been shaded. The second (Fig. 25, A.) exhibits the wide openings of the
frontal sinuses upon the inferior surface of the frontal part of the skull, into
which, Dr. Fuhlrott writes, “a probe may be introduced to the depth of an inch,”
and demonstrates the great extension of the thickened supraciliary ridges beyond
the cerebral cavity. The third, lastly (Fig. 25, B.), exhibits the edge and the
interior of the posterior, or occipital, part of the skull, and shows very clearly the

two depressions for the lateral sinuses, sweeping inwards towards the middle line
of the roof of the skull, to form the longitudinal sinus. It was clear, therefore, that
I had not erred in my interpretation, and that the posterior lobe of the brain of the
Neanderthal man must have been as much flattened as I suspected it to be.

Fig. 25.—Drawings from Dr. Fuhlrott’s photographs of parts of the interior of the
Neanderthal cranium. A. view of the under and inner surface of the frontal region,
showing the inferior apertures of the frontal sinuses (a). B. corresponding view of
the occipital region of the skull, showing the impressions of the lateral sinuses (a a).

In truth, the Neanderthal cranium has most extraordinary characters. It has an
extreme length of 8 inches, while its breadth is only 5.75 inches, or, in other
words, its length is to its breadth as 100 : 72. It is exceedingly depressed,
measuring only about 3.4 inches from the glabello-occipital line to the vertex. The
longitudinal arc, measured in the same way as in the Engis skull, is 12 inches; the

transverse arc cannot be exactly ascertained, in consequence of the absence of the
temporal bones, but was probably about the same, and certainly exceeded 101⁄4
inches. The horizontal circumference is 23 inches. But this great circumference
arises largely from the vast development of the supraciliary ridges, though the
perimeter of the brain case itself is not small. The large supraciliary ridges give
the forehead a far more retreating appearance than its internal contour would bear
out.
To an anatomical eye the posterior part of the skull is even more striking than the
anterior. The occipital protuberance occupies the extreme posterior end of the
skull, when the glabello-occipital line is made horizontal, and so far from any part
of the occipital region extending beyond it, this region of the skull slopes
obliquely upward and forward, so that the lambdoidal suture is situated well upon
the upper surface of the cranium. At the same time, notwithstanding the great
length of the skull, the sagittal suture is remarkably short (41⁄2 inches), and the
squamosal suture is very straight.
In reply to my questions Dr. Fuhlrott writes that the occipital bone “is in a state of
perfect preservation as far as the upper semicircular line, which is a very strong
ridge, linear at its extremities, but enlarging towards the middle, where it forms
two ridges (bourrelets), united by a linear continuation, which is slightly
depressed in the middle.”
“Below the left ridge the bone exhibits an obliquely inclined surface, six lines
(French) long, and twelve lines wide.”
This last must be the surface, the contour of which is shown in Fig. 24, A, below
b. It is particularly interesting, as it suggests that, notwithstanding the flattened
condition of the occiput, the posterior cerebral lobes must have projected
considerably beyond the cerebellum, and as it constitutes one among several
points of similarity between the Neanderthal cranium and certain Australian
skulls.

Such are the two best known forms of human cranium, which have been found in
what may be fairly termed a fossil state. Can either be shown to fill up or
diminish, to any appreciable extent, the structural interval which exists between
Man and the man-like Apes? Or, on the other hand, does neither depart more
widely from the average structure of the human cranium, than normally formed
skulls of men are known to do at the present day?

It is impossible to form any opinion on these questions, without some preliminary
acquaintance with the range of variation exhibited by human structure in general
—a subject which has been but imperfectly studied, while even of what is known,
my limits will necessarily allow me to give only a very imperfect sketch.
The student of anatomy is perfectly well aware that there is not a single organ of
the human body the structure of which does not vary, to a greater or less extent, in
different individuals. The skeleton varies in the proportions, and even to a certain
extent in the connexions, of its constituent bones. The muscles which move the
bones vary largely in their attachments. The varieties in the mode of distribution
of the arteries are carefully classified, on account of the practical importance of a
knowledge of their shiftings to the surgeon. The characters of the brain vary
immensely, nothing being less constant than the form and size of the cerebral
hemispheres, and the richness of the convolutions upon their surface, while the
most changeable structures of all in the human brain, are exactly those on which
the unwise attempt has been made to base the distinctive characters of humanity,
viz. the posterior cornu of the lateral ventricle, the hippocampus minor, and the
degree of projection of the posterior lobe beyond the cerebellum. Finally, as all
the world knows, the hair and skin of human beings may present the most
extraordinary diversities in colour and in texture.
So far as our present knowledge goes, the majority of the structural varieties to
which allusion is here made, are individual. The ape-like arrangement of certain
muscles which is occasionally met with[48] in the white races of mankind, is not
known to be more common among Negroes or Australians: nor because the brain
of the Hottentot Venus was found to be smoother, to have its convolutions more
symmetrically disposed, and to be, so far, more ape-like than that of ordinary
Europeans, are we justified in concluding a like condition of the brain to prevail
universally among the lower races of mankind, however probable that conclusion
may be.
We are, in fact, sadly wanting in information respecting the disposition of the soft
and destructible organs of every Race of Mankind but our own; and even of the
skeleton, our Museums are lamentably deficient in every part but the cranium.
Skulls enough there are, and since the time when Blumenbach and Camper first
called attention to the marked and singular differences which they exhibit, skull
collecting and skull measuring has been a zealously pursued branch of Natural
History, and the results obtained have been arranged and classified by various
writers, among whom the late active and able Retzius must always be the first
named.

Human skulls have been found to differ from one another, not merely in their
absolute size and in the absolute capacity of the brain case, but in the proportions
which the diameters of the latter bear to one another; in the relative size of the
bones of the face (and more particularly of the jaws and teeth) as compared with
those of the skull; in the degree to which the upper jaw (which is of course
followed by the lower) is thrown backwards and downwards under the forepart of
the brain case, or forwards and upwards in front of and beyond it. They differ
further in the relations of the transverse diameter of the face, taken through the
cheek bones, to the transverse diameter of the skull; in the more rounded or more
gable-like form of the roof of the skull, and in the degree to which the hinder part
of the skull is flattened or projects beyond the ridge, into and below which, the
muscles of the neck are inserted.
In some skulls the brain case may be said to be “round,” the extreme length not
exceeding the extreme breadth by a greater proportion than 100 to 80, while the
difference may be much less.[49] Men possessing such skulls were termed by
Retzius “brachycephalic,” and the skull of a Calmuck, of which a front and side
view (reduced outline copies of which are given in Figure 26) are depicted by Von
Baer in his excellent “Crania selecta,” affords a very admirable example of that
kind of skull. Other skulls, such as that of a Negro copied in Fig. 27 from Mr.
Busk’s “Crania typica,” have a very different, greatly elongated form, and may be
termed “oblong.” In this skull the extreme length is to the extreme breadth as 100
to not more than 67, and the transverse diameter of the human skull may fall
below even this proportion. People having such skulls were called by Retzius
“dolichocephalic.”
The most cursory glance at the side views of these two skulls will suffice to prove
that they differ, in another respect, to a very striking extent. The profile of the face
of the Calmuck is almost vertical, the facial bones being thrown downwards and
under the fore part of the skull. The profile of the face of the Negro, on the other
hand, is singularly inclined, the front part of the jaws projecting far forward
beyond the level of the fore part of the skull. In the former case the skull is said to
be “orthognathous” or straight-jawed; in the latter, it is called “prognathous,” a
term which has been rendered, with more force than elegance, by the Saxon
equivalent,—“snouty.”
Various methods have been devised in order to express with some accuracy the
degree of prognathism or orthognathism of any given skull; most of these
methods being essentially modifications of that devised by Peter Camper, in order
to attain what he called the “facial angle.”

Fig. 26.—Side and front views of the round and
orthognathous skull of a Calmuck after Von Baer. One-third
the natural size.

But a little consideration will show that any “facial angle” that has been devised,
can be competent to express the structural modifications involved in prognathism
and orthognathism, only in a rough and general sort of way. For the lines, the
intersection of which forms the facial angle, are drawn through points of the skull,
the position of each of which is modified by a number of circumstances, so that

the angle obtained is a complex resultant of all these circumstances, and is not the
expression of any one definite organic relation of the parts of the skull.
I have arrived at the conviction that no comparison of crania is worth very much,
that is not founded upon the establishment of a relatively fixed base line, to which
the measurements, in all cases, must be referred. Nor do I think it is a very
difficult matter to decide what that base line should be. The parts of the skull, like
those of the rest of the animal framework, are developed in succession: the base
of the skull is formed before its sides and roof; it is converted into cartilage earlier
and more completely than the sides and roof: and the cartilaginous base ossifies,
and becomes soldered into one piece long before the roof. I conceive then that the
base of the skull may be demonstrated developmentally to be its relatively fixed
part, the roof and sides being relatively moveable.
The same truth is exemplified by the study of the modifications which the skull
undergoes in ascending from the lower animals up to man.
In such a mammal as a Beaver (Fig. 28), a line (a. b.) drawn through the bones,
termed basioccipital, basisphenoid, and presphenoid, is very long in proportion to
the extreme length of the cavity which contains the cerebral hemispheres (g. h.).
The plane of the occipital foramen (b. c.) forms a slightly acute angle with this
“basicranial axis,” while the plane of the tentorium (i. T.) is inclined at rather
more than 90° to the “basicranial axis”; and so is the plane of the perforated plate
(a. d.) by which the filaments of the olfactory nerve leave the skull. Again, a line
drawn through the axis of the face, between the bones called ethmoid and vomer
—the “basifacial axis” (f. e.) forms an exceedingly obtuse angle, where, when
produced, it cuts the “basicranial axis.”

Fig. 27.—Oblong and prognathous skull of a Negro; side
and front views. One-third of the natural size.

If the angle made by the line b. c. with a. b., be called the “occipital angle,” and
the angle made by the line a. d. with a. b. be termed the “olfactory angle,” and
that made by i. T. with a. b. the “tentorial angle,” then all these, in the mammal in
question, are nearly right angles, varying between 80° and 110°. The angle e. f. b.,
or that made by the cranial with the facial axis, and which may be termed the
“cranio-facial angle,” is extremely obtuse, amounting, in the case of the Beaver,
to at least 150°.
But if a series of sections of mammalian skulls, intermediate between a Rodent
and a Man (Fig. 28), be examined, it will be found that in the higher crania the
basicranial axis becomes shorter relatively to the cerebral length; that the
“olfactory angle” and “occipital angle” become more obtuse; and that the “cranio-

facial angle” becomes more acute by the bending down, as it were, of the facial
axis upon the cranial axis. At the same time, the roof of the cranium becomes
more and more arched, to allow of the increasing height of the cerebral
hemispheres, which is eminently characteristic of man, as well as of that
backward extension, beyond the cerebellum, which reaches its maximum in the
South American Monkeys. So that, at last, in the human skull (Fig. 29), the
cerebral length is between twice and thrice as great as the length of the basicranial
axis; the olfactory plane is 20° or 30° on the under side of that axis; the occipital
angle, instead of being less than 90°, is as much as 150° or 160°; the cranio-facial
angle may be 90° or less, and the vertical height of the skull may have a large
proportion to its length.
It will be obvious, from an inspection of the diagrams, that the basicranial axis is,
in the ascending series of Mammalia, a relatively fixed line, on which the bones
of the sides and roof of the cranial cavity, and of the face, may be said to revolve
downwards and forwards or backwards, according to their position. The arc
described by any one bone or plane, however, is not by any means always in
proportion to the arc described by another.
Now comes the important question, can we discern, between the lowest and the
highest forms of the human cranium anything answering, in however slight a
degree, to this revolution of the side and roof bones of the skull upon the
basicranial axis observed upon so great a scale in the mammalian series?
Numerous observations lead me to believe that we must answer this question in
the affirmative.

Fig. 28.—Longitudinal and vertical sections of the skulls of a Beaver (Castor Canadensis), a Lemur (L.
Catta), and a Baboon (Cynocephalus Papio), a b, the basicranial axis; b c, the occipital plane; i T, the
tentorial plane; a d, the olfactory plane; f e, the basifacial axis; c b a, occipital angle; T i a, tentorial
angle; d a b, olfactory angle; e f b, cranio-facial angle; g h, extreme length of the cavity which lodges the
cerebral hemispheres or “cerebral length.” The length of the basicranial axis as to this length, or, in
other words, the proportional length of the line g h to that of a b taken as 100, in the three skulls, is as
follows:—Beaver 70 to 100; Lemur 119 to 100; Baboon 144 to 100. In an adult male Gorilla the cerebral
length is as 170 to the basicranial axis taken as 100, in the Negro (Fig. 29) as 236 to 100. In the
Constantinople skull (Fig. 29) as 266 to 100. The cranial difference between the highest Ape’s skull and
the lowest Man’s is therefore very strikingly brought out by these measurements.
In the diagram of the Baboon’s skull the dotted lines d1d2, &c., give the angles of the Lemur’s and
Beaver’s skull, as laid down upon the basicranial axis of the Baboon. The line a b has the same length in
each diagram.

The diagrams in Figure 29 are reduced from very carefully made diagrams of
sections of four skulls, two round and orthognathous, two long and prognathous,
taken longitudinally and vertically, through the middle. The sectional diagrams
have then been superimposed, in such a manner, that the basal axes of the skulls
coincide by their anterior ends, and in their direction. The deviations of the rest of
the contours (which represent the interior of the skulls only) show the differences
of the skulls from one another, when these axes are regarded as relatively fixed
lines.
The dark contours are those of an Australian and of a Negro skull: the light
contours are those of a Tartar skull, in the Museum of the Royal College of
Surgeons; and of a well developed round skull from a cemetery in
Constantinople, of uncertain race, in my own possession.
It appears, at once, from these views, that the prognathous skulls, so far as their
jaws are concerned, do really differ from the orthognathous in much the same
way as, though to a far less degree than, the skulls of the lower mammals differ
from those of Man. Furthermore, the plane of the occipital foramen (b c) forms a
somewhat smaller angle with the axis in these particular prognathous skulls than
in the orthognathous; and the like may be slightly true of the perforated plate of
the ethmoid—though this point is not so clear. But it is singular to remark that, in
another respect, the prognathous skulls are less ape-like than the orthognathous,
the cerebral cavity projecting decidedly more beyond the anterior end of the axis
in the prognathous, than in the orthognathous, skulls.
It will be observed that these diagrams reveal an immense range of variation in
the capacity and relative proportion to the cranial axis, of the different regions of
the cavity which contains the brain, in the different skulls. Nor is the difference in
the extent to which the cerebral overlaps the cerebellar cavity less singular. A
round skull (Fig. 29, Const.) may have a greater posterior cerebral projection than
a long one (Fig. 29, Negro).

Fig. 29.—Sections of orthognathous (light contour) and
prognathous (dark contour) skulls, one-third of the natural size. a
b, Basicranial axis; b c, b′ c′, plane of the occipital foramen; d d′,
hinder end of the palatine bone; e e′, front end of the upper jaw;
TT´, insertion of the tentorium.

Until human crania have been largely worked out in a manner similar to that here
suggested—until it shall be an opprobrium to an ethnological collection to
possess a single skull which is not bisected longitudinally—until the angles and
measurements here mentioned, together with a number of others of which I
cannot speak in this place, are determined, and tabulated with reference to the
basicranial axis as unity, for large numbers of skulls of the different races of
Mankind, I do not think we shall have any very safe basis for that ethnological
craniology which aspires to give the anatomical characters of the crania of the
different Races of Mankind.

At present, I believe that the general outlines of what may be safely said upon that
subject may be summed up in a very few words. Draw a line on a globe from the
Gold Coast in Western Africa to the steppes of Tartary. At the southern and
western end of that line there live the most dolichocephalic, prognathous, curly-
haired, dark-skinned of men—the true Negroes. At the northern and eastern end
of the same line there live the most brachycephalic, orthognathous, straight-
haired, yellow-skinned of men—the Tartars and Calmucks. The two ends of this
imaginary line are indeed, so to speak, ethnological antipodes. A line drawn at
right angles, or nearly so, to this polar line through Europe and Southern Asia to
Hindostan, would give us a sort of equator, around which round-headed, oval-
headed, and oblong-headed, prognathous and orthognathous, fair and dark races
—but none possessing the excessively marked characters of Calmuck or Negro—
group themselves.
It is worthy of notice that the regions of the antipodal races are antipodal in
climate, the greatest contrast the world affords, perhaps, being that between the
damp, hot, steaming, alluvial coast plains of the West Coast of Africa and the arid,
elevated steppes and plateaux of Central Asia, bitterly cold in winter, and as far
from the sea as any part of the world can be.
From Central Asia eastward to the Pacific Islands and subcontinents on the one
hand, and to America on the other, brachycephaly and orthognathism gradually
diminish, and are replaced by dolichocephaly and prognathism, less, however, on
the American Continent (throughout the whole length of which a rounded type of
skull prevails largely, but not exclusively)[50] than in the Pacific region, where, at
length, on the Australian Continent and in the adjacent islands, the oblong skull,
the projecting jaws, and the dark skin reappear; with so much departure, in other
respects, from the Negro type, that ethnologists assign to these people the special
title of “Negritoes.”
The Australian skull is remarkable for its narrowness and for the thickness of its
walls, especially in the region of the supraciliary ridge, which is frequently,
though not by any means invariably, solid throughout, the frontal sinuses
remaining undeveloped. The nasal depression, again, is extremely sudden, so that
the brows overhang and give the countenance a particularly lowering, threatening
expression. The occipital region of the skull, also, not unfrequently becomes less
prominent; so that it not only fails to project beyond a line drawn perpendicular to
the hinder extremity of the glabello-occipital line, but even, in some cases, begins
to shelve away from it, forwards, almost immediately. In consequence of this
circumstance, the parts of the occipital bone which lie above and below the
tuberosity make a much more acute angle with one another than is usual, whereby

the hinder part of the base of the skull appears obliquely truncated. Many
Australian skulls have a considerable height, quite equal to that of the average of
any other race, but there are others in which the cranial roof becomes remarkably
depressed, the skull, at the same time, elongating so much that, probably, its
capacity is not diminished. The majority of skulls possessing these characters,
which I have seen, are from the neighbourhood of Port Adelaide in South
Australia, and have been used by the natives as water vessels; to which end the
face has been knocked away, and a string passed through the vacuity and the
occipital foramen, so that the skull was suspended by the greater part of its basis.
Figure 30 represents the contour of a skull of this kind from Western Port, with
the jaw attached, and of the Neanderthal skull, both reduced to one-third of the
size of nature. A small additional amount of flattening and lengthening, with a
corresponding increase of the supraciliary ridge, would convert the Australian
brain case into a form identical with that of the aberrant fossil.

Fig. 30.—An Australian skull from Western Port, in the Museum of the Royal College of
Surgeons, with the contour of the Neanderthal skull. Both reduced to one-third the natural
size.

And now, to return to the fossil skulls, and to the rank which they occupy among,
or beyond, these existing varieties of cranial conformation. In the first place, I
must remark, that, as Professor Schmerling well observed (supra, p. 114) in
commenting upon the Engis skull, the formation of a safe judgment upon the
question is greatly hindered by the absence of the jaws from both the crania, so
that there is no means of deciding, with certainty, whether they were more or less
prognathous than the lower existing races of mankind. And yet, as we have seen,
it is more in this respect than any other, that human skulls vary, towards and from,
the brutal type—the brain case of an average dolichocephalic European differing
far less from that of a Negro, for example, than his jaws do. In the absence of the
jaws, then, any judgment on the relations of the fossil skulls to recent Races must
be accepted with a certain reservation.
But taking the evidence as it stands, and turning first to the Engis skull, I confess
I can find no character in the remains of that cranium which, if it were a recent
skull, would give any trustworthy clue as to the Race to which it might appertain.
Its contours and measurements agree very well with those of some Australian
skulls which I have examined—and especially has it a tendency towards that
occipital flattening, to the great extent of which, in some Australian skulls, I have
alluded. But all Australian skulls do not present this flattening, and the
supraciliary ridge of the Engis skull is quite unlike that of the typical Australians.
On the other hand, its measurements agree equally well with those of some
European skulls. And assuredly, there is no mark of degradation about any part of
its structure. It is, in fact, a fair average human skull, which might have belonged
to a philosopher, or might have contained the thoughtless brains of a savage.
The case of the Neanderthal skull is very different. Under whatever aspect we
view this cranium, whether we regard its vertical depression, the enormous
thickness of its supraciliary ridges, its sloping occiput, or its long and straight
squamosal suture, we meet with ape-like characters, stamping it as the most
pithecoid of human crania yet discovered. But Professor Schaaffhausen states
(supra, p. 122), that the cranium, in its present condition, holds 1033.24 cubic
centimetres of water, or about 63 cubic inches, and as the entire skull could hardly
have held less than an additional 12 cubic inches, its capacity may be estimated at
about 75 cubic inches, which is the average capacity given by Morton for
Polynesian and Hottentot skulls.

Fig. 31.—Ancient Danish skull from a tumulus at Borreby;
one-third of the natural size. From a camera lucida drawing
by Mr. Busk.

So large a mass of brain as this, would alone suggest that the pithecoid
tendencies, indicated by this skull, did not extend deep into the organization; and
this conclusion is borne out by the dimensions of the other bones of the skeleton
given by Professor Schaaffhausen, which show that the absolute height and
relative proportions of the limbs, were quite those of an European of middle
stature. The bones are indeed stouter, but this and the great development of the
muscular ridges noted by Dr. Schaaffhausen, are characters to be expected in
savages. The Patagonians, exposed without shelter or protection to a climate
possibly not very dissimilar from that of Europe at the time during which the
Neanderthal man lived, are remarkable for the stoutness of their limb bones.

In no sense, then, can the Neanderthal bones be regarded as the remains of a
human being intermediate between Men and Apes. At most, they demonstrate the
existence of a man whose skull may be said to revert somewhat towards the
pithecoid type—just as a Carrier, or a Pouter, or a Tumbler, may sometimes put
on the plumage of its primitive stock, the Columba livia. And indeed, though truly
the most pithecoid of known human skulls, the Neanderthal cranium is by no
means so isolated as it appears to be at first, but forms, in reality, the extreme
term of a series leading gradually from it to the highest and best developed of
human crania. On the one hand, it is closely approached by the flattened
Australian skulls, of which I have spoken, from which other Australian forms lead
us gradually up to skulls having very much the type of the Engis cranium. And,
on the other hand, it is even more closely affined to the skulls of certain ancient
people who inhabited Denmark during the “stone period,” and were probably
either contemporaneous with, or later than, the makers of the “refuse heaps,” or
“Kjokkenmöddings” of that country.
The correspondence between the longitudinal contour of the Neanderthal skull
and that of some of those skulls from the tumuli at Borreby, very accurate
drawings of which have been made by Mr. Busk, is very close. The occiput is
quite as retreating, the supraciliary ridges are nearly as prominent, and the skull is
as low. Furthermore, the Borreby skull resembles the Neanderthal form more
closely than any of the Australian skulls do, by the much more rapid retrocession
of the forehead. On the other hand, the Borreby skulls are all somewhat broader,
in proportion to their length, than the Neanderthal skull, while some attain that
proportion of breadth to length (80 : 100) which constitutes brachycephaly.

In conclusion, I may say, that the fossil remains of Man hitherto discovered do not
seem to me to take us appreciably nearer to that lower pithecoid form, by the
modification of which he has, probably, become what he is. And considering what
is now known of the most ancient races of men; seeing that they fashioned flint
axes and flint knives and bone-skewers, of much the same pattern as those
fabricated by the lowest savages at the present day, and that we have every reason
to believe the habits and modes of living of such people to have remained the
same from the time of the Mammoth and the tichorhine Rhinoceros till now, I do
not know that this result is other than might be expected.
Where, then, must we look for primæval Man? Was the oldest Homo sapiens
pliocene or miocene, or yet more ancient? In still older strata do the fossilized

bones of an Ape more anthropoid, or a Man more pithecoid, than any yet known
await the researches of some unborn paleontologist?
Time will show. But, in the meanwhile, if any form of the doctrine of progressive
development is correct, we must extend by long epochs the most liberal estimate
that has yet been made of the antiquity of Man.

FOOTNOTES:

[38] Decas Collectionis suæ craniorum diversarum gentium illustrata. Gottingæ, 1790-
1820.
[39] In a subsequent passage, Schmerling remarks upon the occurrence of an incisor
tooth “of enormous size” from the caverns of Engihoul. The tooth figured is somewhat
long, but its dimensions do not appear to me to be otherwise remarkable.
[40] The figure of this clavicle measures 5 inches from end to end in a straight line—so
that the bone is rather a small than a large one.
[41] On the Crania of the most Ancient Races of Man. By Professor D.
Schaaffhausen, of Bonn. (From Müller’s Archiv., 1858, p. 453.) With Remarks, and
original Figures, taken from a Cast of the Neanderthal Cranium. By George Busk,
F.R.S., &c. Natural History Review, April, 1861.
[42] Verhandl. d. Naturhist. Vereins der preuss. Rheinlande und Westphalens., xiv.
Bonn, 1857.
[43] Ib. Correspondenzblatt. No. 2.
[44] This, Mr. Busk has pointed out, is probably the notch for the frontal nerve.
[45] The numbers in brackets are those which I should assign to the different measures,
as taken from the plaster cast.—G. B.
[46] Verh. des Naturhist. Vereins in Bonn, xiv. 1857.
[47] Estimating the facial angle in the way suggested, on the cast I should place it at
64° to 67°.—G. B.
[48] See an excellent Essay by Mr. Church on the Myology of the Orang, in the
Natural History Review, for 1861.
[49] In no normal human skull does the breadth of the brain-case exceed its length.
[50] See Dr. D. Wilson’s valuable paper “On the supposed prevalence of one Cranial
Type throughout the American aborigines.”—Canadian Journal, vol. ii., 1857.

IV

THE PRESENT CONDITION OF ORGANIC
NATURE.
When it was my duty to consider what subject I would select for the six lectures
which I shall now have the pleasure of delivering to you, it occurred to me that I
could not do better than endeavour to put before you in a true light, or in what I
might perhaps with more modesty call, that which I conceive myself to be the true
light, the position of a book which has been more praised and more abused,
perhaps, than any book which has appeared for some years;—I mean Mr.
Darwin’s work on the “Origin of Species.” That work, I doubt not, many of you
have read; for I know the inquiring spirit which is rife among you. At any rate, all
of you will have heard of it,—some by one kind of report and some by another
kind of report; the attention of all and the curiosity of all have been probably
more or less excited on the subject of that work. All I can do, and all I shall
attempt to do, is to put before you that kind of judgment which has been formed
by a man, who, of course, is liable to judge erroneously; but at any rate, of one
whose business and profession it is to form judgments upon questions of this
nature.
And here, as it will always happen when dealing with an extensive subject, the
greater part of my course—if, indeed, so small a number of lectures can be
properly called a course—must be devoted to preliminary matters, or rather to a
statement of those facts and of those principles which the work itself dwells upon,
and brings more or less directly before us. I have no right to suppose that all or
any of you are naturalists; and even if you were, the misconceptions and
misunderstandings prevalent even among naturalists on these matters would make
it desirable that I should take the course I now propose to take,—that I should
start from the beginning,—that I should endeavour to point out what is the
existing state of the organic world—that I should point out its past condition,—
that I should state what is the precise nature of the undertaking which Mr. Darwin
has taken in hand; that I should endeavour to show you what are the only methods
by which that undertaking can be brought to an issue, and to point out to you how
far the author of the work in question has satisfied those conditions, how far he

has not satisfied them, how far they are satisfiable by man, and how far they are
not satisfiable by man.
To-night, in taking up the first part of the question, I shall endeavour to put before
you a sort of broad notion of our knowledge of the condition of the living world.
There are many ways of doing this. I might deal with it pictorially and
graphically. Following the example of Humboldt in his “Aspects of Nature,” I
might endeavour to point out the infinite variety of organic life in every mode of
its existence, with reference to the variations of climate and the like; and such an
attempt would be fraught with interest to us all; but considering the subject before
us, such a course would not be that best calculated to assist us. In an argument of
this kind we must go further and dig deeper into the matter; we must endeavour to
look into the foundations of living Nature, if I may so say, and discover the
principles involved in some of her most secret operations. I propose, therefore, in
the first place, to take some ordinary animal with which you are all familiar, and,
by easily comprehensible and obvious examples drawn from it, to show what are
the kind of problems which living beings in general lay before us; and I shall then
show you that the same problems are laid open to us by all kinds of living beings.
But, first, let me say in what sense I have used the words “organic nature.” In
speaking of the causes which lead to our present knowledge of organic nature, I
have used it almost as an equivalent of the word “living,” and for this reason,—
that in almost all living beings you can distinguish several distinct portions set
apart to do particular things and work in a particular way. These are termed
“organs,” and the whole together is called “organic.” And as it is universally
characteristic of them, the term “organic” has been very conveniently employed
to denote the whole of living nature,—the whole of the plant world, and the
whole of the animal world.
Few animals can be more familiar to you than that whose skeleton is shown on
our diagram. You need not bother yourselves with this “Equus caballus” written
under it; that is only the Latin name of it, and does not make it any better. It
simply means the common Horse. Suppose we wish to understand all about the
Horse. Our first object must be to study the structure of the animal. The whole of
his body is inclosed within a hide, a skin covered with hair; and if that hide or
skin be taken off, we find a great mass of flesh, or what is technically called
muscle, being the substance which by its power of contraction enables the animal
to move. These muscles move the hard parts one upon the other, and so give that
strength and power of motion which renders the Horse so useful to us in the
performance of those services in which we employ him.

And then, on separating and removing the whole of this skin and flesh, you have a
great series of bones, hard structures, bound together with ligaments, and forming
the skeleton which is represented here.
In that skeleton there are a number of
parts to be recognized. The long series of
bones, beginning from the skull and
ending in the tail, is called the spine, and
those in front are the ribs; and then there
are two pairs of limbs, one before and one
behind; and there are what we all know as
the fore-legs and the hind-legs. If we
pursue our researches into the interior of
this animal, we find within the framework
of the skeleton a great cavity, or rather, I
should say, two great cavities,—one
cavity beginning in the skull and running
through the neck-bones, along the spine,
Fig. 32. and ending in the tail, containing the
brain and the spinal marrow, which are
extremely important organs. The second great cavity, commencing with the
mouth, contains the gullet, the stomach, the long intestine, and all the rest of those
internal apparatus which are essential for digestion; and then in the same great
cavity, there are lodged the heart and all the great vessels going from it; and,
besides that, the organs of respiration—the lungs; and then the kidneys, and the
organs of reproduction, and so on. Let us now endeavour to reduce this notion of
a horse that we now have, to some such kind of simple expression as can be at
once, and without difficulty, retained in the mind, apart from all minor details. If I
make a transverse section, that is, if I were to saw a dead horse across, I should
find that, if I left out the details, and supposing I took my section through the
anterior region, and through the fore-limbs, I should have here this kind of section
of the body (Fig. 32). Here would be the upper part of the animal—that great
mass of bones that we spoke of as the spine (a, Fig. 32). Here I should have the
alimentary canal (b, Fig. 32). Here I should have the heart (c, Fig. 32); and then
you see, there would be a kind of double tube, the whole being inclosed within
the hide; the spinal marrow would be placed in the upper tube (a, Fig. 32), and in
the lower tube (d d, Fig. 32), there would be the alimentary canal (b), and the
heart (c); and here I shall have the legs proceeding from each side. For
simplicity’s sake, I represent them merely as stumps (e e, Fig. 32). Now that is a
horse—as mathematicians would say—reduced to its most simple expression.

Carry that in your minds, if you please, as a simplified idea of the structure of the
Horse. The considerations which I have now put before you belong to what we
technically call the “Anatomy” of the Horse. Now, suppose we go to work upon
these several parts,—flesh and hair, and skin and bone, and lay open these various
organs with our scalpels, and examine them by means of our magnifying-glasses,
and see what we can make of them. We shall find that the flesh is made up of
bundles of strong fibres. The brain and nerves, too, we shall find, are made up of
fibres, and these queer-looking things that are called ganglionic corpuscles. If we
take a slice of the bone and examine it, we shall find that it is very like this
diagram of a section of the bone of an ostrich, though differing, of course, in
some details; and if we take any part whatsoever of the tissue, and examine it, we
shall find it all has a minute structure, visible only under the microscope. All
these parts constitute microscopic anatomy or “Histology.” These parts are
constantly being changed; every part is constantly growing, decaying, and being
replaced during the life of the animal. The tissue is constantly replaced by new
material; and if you go back to the young state of the tissue in the case of muscle,
or in the case of skin, or any of the organs I have mentioned, you will find that
they all come under the same condition. Every one of these microscopic filaments
and fibres (I now speak merely of the general character of the whole process)—
every one of these parts—could be traced down to some modification of a tissue
which can be readily divided into little particles of fleshy matter, of that substance
which is composed of the chemical elements, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and
nitrogen, having such a shape as this (Fig. 33). These particles, into which all
primitive tissues break up, are called cells. If I were to make a section of a piece
of the skin of my hand, I should find that it was made up of these cells. If I
examine the fibres which form the various organs of all living animals, I should
find that all of them, at one time or other, had been formed out of a substance
consisting of similar elements; so that you see, just as we reduced the whole body
in the gross to that sort of simple expression given in Fig. 32, so we may reduce
the whole of the microscopic structural elements to a form of even greater
simplicity; just as the plan of the whole body may be so represented in a sense
(Fig. 32), so the primary structure of every tissue may be represented by a mass of
cells (Fig. 33).
Having thus, in this sort of general way, sketched to you what I may call, perhaps,
the architecture of the body of the Horse, (what we term technically its
Morphology,) I must now turn to another aspect. A horse is not a mere dead
structure: it is an active, living, working machine. Hitherto we have, as it were,
been looking at a steam-engine with the fires out, and nothing in the boiler; but
the body of the living animal is a beautifully-formed active machine, and every

part has its different work to do in the
working of that machine, which is what
we call its life. The Horse, if you see him
after his day’s work is done, is cropping
the grass in the fields, as it may be, or
munching the oats in his stable. What is
he doing? His jaws are working as a mill
—and a very complex mill too—grinding
the corn, or crushing the grass to a pulp.
As soon as that operation has taken place,
the food is passed down to the stomach,
and there it is mixed with the chemical
fluid called the gastric juice, a substance
which has the peculiar property of
making soluble and dissolving out the Fig. 33.
nutritious matter in the grass, and leaving
behind those parts which are not nutritious; so that you have, first, the mill, then a
sort of chemical digester; and then the food, thus partially dissolved, is carried
back by the muscular contractions of the intestines into the hinder parts of the
body, while the soluble portions are taken up into the blood. The blood is
contained in a vast system of pipes, spreading through the whole body, connected
with a force-pump,—the heart,—which, by its position and by the contractions of
its valves, keeps the blood constantly circulating in one direction, never allowing
it to rest; and then, by means of this circulation of the blood, laden as it is with the
products of digestion, the skin, the flesh, the hair, and every other part of the
body, draws from it that which it wants, and every one of these organs derives
those materials which are necessary to enable it to do its work.
The action of each of these organs, the performance of each of these various
duties, involve in their operation a continual absorption of the matters necessary
for their support, from the blood, and a constant formation of waste products,
which are returned to the blood, and conveyed by it to the lungs and the kidneys,
which are organs that have allotted to them the office of extracting, separating,
and getting rid of these waste products; and thus the general nourishment, labour,
and repair of the whole machine is kept up with order and regularity. But not only
is it a machine which feeds and appropriates to its own support the nourishment
necessary to its existence—it is an engine for locomotive purposes. The Horse
desires to go from one place to another; and to enable it to do this, it has those
strong contractile bundles of muscles attached to the bones of its limbs, which are
put in motion by means of a sort of telegraphic apparatus formed by the brain and

the great spinal cord running through the spine or backbone; and to this spinal
cord are attached a number of fibres termed nerves, which proceed to all parts of
the structure. By means of these the eyes, nose, tongue, and skin—all the organs
of perception—transmit impressions or sensations to the brain, which acts as a
sort of great central telegraph-office, receiving impressions and sending messages
to all parts of the body, and putting in motion the muscles necessary to
accomplish any movement that may be desired. So that you have here an
extremely complex and beautifully-proportioned machine, with all its parts
working harmoniously together towards one common object—the preservation of
the life of the animal.
Now, note this: the Horse makes up its waste by feeding, and its food is grass or
oats, or perhaps other vegetable products; therefore, in the long run, the source of
all this complex machinery lies in the vegetable kingdom. But where does the
grass, or the oat, or any other plant, obtain this nourishing food-producing
material? At first it is a little seed, which soon begins to draw into itself from the
earth and the surrounding air matters which in themselves contain no vital
properties whatever; it absorbs into its own substance water, an inorganic body; it
draws into its substance carbonic acid, an inorganic matter; and ammonia, another
inorganic matter, found in the air; and then, by some wonderful chemical process,
the details of which chemists do not yet understand, though they are near
foreshadowing them, it combines them into one substance, which is known to us
as “Protein,” a complex compound of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen,
which alone possesses the property of manifesting vitality and of permanently
supporting animal life. So that, you see, the waste products of the animal
economy, the effete materials which are continually being thrown off by all living
beings, in the form of organic matters, are constantly replaced by supplies of the
necessary repairing and rebuilding materials drawn from the plants, which in their
turn manufacture them, so to speak, by a mysterious combination of those same
inorganic materials.
Let us trace out the history of the Horse in another direction. After a certain time,
as the result of sickness or disease, the effect of accident, or the consequence of
old age, sooner or later, the animal dies. The multitudinous operations of this
beautiful mechanism flag in their performance, the Horse loses its vigour, and
after passing through the curious series of changes comprised in its formation and
preservation, it finally decays, and ends its life by going back into that inorganic
world from which all but an inappreciable fraction of its substance was derived.
Its bones become mere carbonate and phosphate of lime; the matter of its flesh,
and of its other parts, becomes, in the long run, converted into carbonic acid, into
water, and into ammonia. You will now, perhaps, understand the curious relation

of the animal with the plant, of the organic with the inorganic world, which is
shown in this diagram.
The plant gathers these inorganic materials together and makes them up into its
own substance. The animal eats the plant and appropriates the nutritious portions
to its own sustenance, rejects and gets rid of the useless matters; and, finally, the
animal itself dies, and its whole body is decomposed and returned into the
inorganic world. There is thus a constant circulation from one to the other, a
continual formation of organic life from inorganic matters, and as constant a
return of the matter of living bodies to the inorganic world; so that the materials
of which our bodies are composed are largely, in all probability, the substances
which constituted the matter of long extinct creations, but which have in the
interval constituted a part of the inorganic world.
INORGANIC WORLD.

Fig. 34.

Thus we come to the conclusion, strange at first sight, that the Matter
constituting the living world is identical with that which forms the inorganic
world. And not less true is it that, remarkable as are the powers or, in other words,
as are the Forces which are exerted by living beings, yet all these forces are either
identical with those which exist in the inorganic world, or they are convertible
into them; I mean in just the same sense as the researches of physical
philosophers have shown that heat is convertible into electricity, that electricity is
convertible into magnetism, magnetism into mechanical force or chemical force,
and any one of them with the other, each being measurable in terms of the other,

—even so, I say, that great law is applicable to the living world. Consider why is
the skeleton of this horse capable of supporting the masses of flesh and the
various organs forming the living body, unless it is because of the action of the
same forces of cohesion which combines together the particles of matter
composing this piece of chalk? What is there in the muscular contractile power of
the animal but the force which is expressible, and which is in a certain sense
convertible, into the force of gravity which it overcomes? Or, if you go to more
hidden processes, in what does the process of digestion differ from those
processes which are carried on in the laboratory of the chemist? Even if we take
the most recondite and most complex operations of animal life—those of the
nervous system, these of late years have been shown to be—I do not say identical
in any sense with the electrical processes—but this has been shown, that they are
in some way or other associated with them; that is to say, that every amount of
nervous action is accompanied by a certain amount of electrical disturbance in the
particles of the nerves in which that nervous action is carried on. In this way the
nervous action is related to electricity in the same way that heat is related to
electricity; and the same sort of argument which demonstrates the two latter to be
related to one another shows that the nervous forces are correlated to electricity;
for the experiments of M. Dubois Reymond and others have shown that whenever
a nerve is in a state of excitement, sending a message to the muscles or conveying
an impression to the brain, there is a disturbance of the electrical condition of that
nerve which does not exist at other times; and there are a number of other facts
and phenomena of that sort; so that we come to the broad conclusion that not only
as to living matter itself, but as to the forces that matter exerts, there is a close
relationship between the organic and the inorganic world—the difference between
them arising from the diverse combination and disposition of identical forces, and
not from any primary diversity, so far as we can see.
I said just now that the Horse eventually died and became converted into the same
inorganic substances from whence all but an inappreciable fraction of its
substance demonstrably originated, so that the actual wanderings of matter are as
remarkable as the transmigrations of the soul fabled by Indian tradition. But
before death has occurred, in the one sex or the other, and in fact in both, certain
products or parts of the organism have been set free, certain parts of the
organisms of the two sexes have come into contact with one another, and from
that conjunction, from that union which then takes place, there results the
formation of a new being. At stated times the mare, from a particular part of the
interior of her body, called the ovary, gets rid of a minute particle of matter
comparable in all essential respects with that which we called a cell a little while
since, which cell contains a kind of nucleus in its centre, surrounded by a clear

space and by a viscid mass of protein substance (Fig. 33); and though it is
different in appearance from the eggs which we are mostly acquainted with, it is
really an egg. After a time this minute particle of matter, which may only be a
small fraction of a grain in weight, undergoes a series of changes,—wonderful,
complex changes. Finally, upon its surface there is fashioned a little elevation,
which afterwards becomes divided and marked by a groove. The lateral
boundaries of the groove extend upwards and downwards, and at length give rise
to a double tube. In the upper and smaller tube the spinal marrow and brain are
fashioned; in the lower, the alimentary canal and heart; and at length two pairs of
buds shoot out at the sides of the body, and they are the rudiments of the limbs. In
fact a true drawing of a section of the embryo in this state would in all essential
respects resemble that diagram of a horse reduced to its simplest expression,
which I first placed before you (Fig. 32).
Slowly and gradually these changes take place. The whole of the body, at first,
can be broken up into “cells,” which become in one place metamorphosed into
muscle,—in another place into gristle and bone,—in another place into fibrous
tissue,—and in another into hair; every part becoming gradually and slowly
fashioned, as if there were an artificer at work in each of these complex structures
that I have mentioned. This embryo, as it is called, then passes into other
conditions. I should tell you that there is a time when the embryos of neither dog,
nor horse, nor porpoise, nor monkey, nor man, can be distinguished by any
essential feature one from the other; there is a time when they each and all of
them resemble this one of the Dog. But as development advances, all the parts
acquire their speciality, till at length you have the embryo converted into the form
of the parent from which it started. So that, you see, this living animal, this horse,
begins its existence as a minute particle of nitrogenous matter, which, being
supplied with nutriment (derived, as I have shown, from the inorganic world),
grows up according to the special type and construction of its parents, works and
undergoes a constant waste, and that waste is made good by nutriment derived
from the inorganic world; the waste given off in this way being directly added to
the inorganic world. Eventually the animal itself dies, and, by the process of
decomposition, its whole body is returned to those conditions of inorganic matter
in which its substance originated.
This, then, is that which is true of every living form, from the lowest plant to the
highest animal—to man himself. You might define the life of every one in exactly
the same terms as those which I have now used; the difference between the
highest and the lowest being simply in the complexity of the developmental
changes, the variety of the structural forms, and the diversity of the physiological
functions which are exerted by each.

If I were to take an oak tree, as a specimen of the plant world, I should find that it
originated in an acorn, which, too, commenced in a cell; the acorn is placed in the
ground, and it very speedily begins to absorb the inorganic matters I have named,
adds enormously to its bulk, and we can see it, year after year, extending itself
upward and downward, attracting and appropriating to itself inorganic materials,
which it vivifies, and eventually, as it ripens, gives off its own proper acorns,
which again run the same course. But I need not multiply examples,—from the
highest to the lowest the essential features of life are the same, as I have described
in each of these cases.
So much, then, for these particular features of the organic world, which you can
understand and comprehend, so long as you confine yourself to one sort of living
being, and study that only.
But, as you know, horses are not the only living creatures in the world; and again,
horses, like all other animals, have certain limits—are confined to a certain area
on the surface of the earth on which we live,—and, as that is the simpler matter, I
may take that first. In its wild state, and before the discovery of America, when
the natural state of things was interfered with by the Spaniards, the Horse was
only to be found in parts of the earth which are known to geographers as the Old
World; that is to say, you might meet with horses in Europe, Asia, or Africa; but
there were none in Australia, and there were none whatsoever in the whole
continent of America, from Labrador down to Cape Horn. This is an empirical
fact, and it is what is called, stated in the way I have given it you, the
“Geographical Distribution” of the Horse.
Why horses should be found in Europe, Asia, and Africa, and not in America, is
not obvious; the explanation that the conditions of life in America are
unfavourable to their existence, and that, therefore, they had not been created
there, evidently does not apply; for when the invading Spaniards, or our own
yeomen farmers, conveyed horses to these countries for their own use, they were
found to thrive well and multiply very rapidly; and many are even now running
wild in those countries, and in a perfectly natural condition. Now, suppose we
were to do for every animal what we have here done for the Horse,—that is, to
mark off and distinguish the particular district or region to which each belonged;
and supposing we tabulated all these results, that would be called the
Geographical Distribution of animals, while a corresponding study of plants
would yield as a result the Geographical Distribution of plants.
I pass on from that now, as I merely wished to explain to you what I meant by the
use of the term “Geographical Distribution.” As I said, there is another aspect, and

a much more important one, and that is, the relations of the various animals to one
another. The Horse is a very well-defined matter-of-fact sort of animal, and we
are all pretty familiar with its structure. I dare say it may have struck you, that it
resembles very much no other member of the animal kingdom, except perhaps the
Zebra or the Ass. But let me ask you to look along these diagrams. Here is the
skeleton of the Horse, and here the skeleton of the Dog. You will notice that we
have in the Horse a skull, a backbone and ribs, shoulder-blades and haunch-
bones. In the fore-limb, one upper arm-bone, two fore arm-bones, wrist-bones
(wrongly called knee), and middle hand-bones, ending in the three bones of a
finger, the last of which is sheathed in the horny hoof of the fore-foot: in the hind-
limb, one thigh-bone, two leg-bones, ankle-bones, and middle foot-bones, ending
in the three bones of a toe, the last of which is encased in the hoof of the hind-
foot. Now turn to the Dog’s skeleton. We find identically the same bones, but
more of them, there being more toes in each foot, and hence more toe-bones.
Well, that is a very curious thing! The fact is that the Dog and the Horse—when
one gets a look at them without the outward impediments of the skin—are found
to be made in very much the same sort of fashion. And if I were to make a
transverse section of the Dog, I should find the same organs that I have already
shown you as forming parts of the Horse. Well, here is another skeleton—that of a
kind of Lemur—you see he has just the same bones; and if I were to make a
transverse section of it, it would be just the same again. In your mind’s eye turn
him round, so as to put his backbone in a position inclined obliquely upwards and
forwards, just as in the next three diagrams, which represent the skeletons of an
Orang, a Chimpanzee, and a Gorilla, and you find you have no trouble in
identifying the bones throughout; and lastly turn to the end of the series, the
diagram representing a man’s skeleton, and still you find no great structural
feature essentially altered. There are the same bones in the same relations. From
the Horse we pass on and on, with gradual steps, until we arrive at last at the
highest known forms. On the other hand, take the other line of diagrams, and pass
from the Horse downwards in the scale to this fish; and still, though the
modifications are vastly greater, the essential framework of the organization
remains unchanged. Here, for instance, is a Porpoise; here is its strong backbone,
with the cavity running through it, which contains the spinal cord; here are the
ribs, here the shoulder-blade; here is the little short upper-arm bone, here are the
two forearm bones, the wrist-bone, and the finger-bones.
Strange, is it not, that the Porpoise should have in this queer-looking affair—its
flapper (as it is called), the same fundamental elements as the fore-leg of the
Horse or the Dog, or the Ape or Man; and here you will notice a very curious
thing,—the hinder limbs are absent. Now, let us make another jump. Let us go to

the Codfish: here you see is the forearm, in this large pectoral fin—carrying your
mind’s eye onward from the flapper of the Porpoise. And here you have the
hinder limbs restored in the shape of these ventral fins. If I were to make a
transverse section of this, I should find just the same organs that we have before
noticed. So that, you see, there comes out this strange conclusion as the result of
our investigations, that the Horse, when examined and compared with other
animals, is found by no means to stand alone in nature; but that there are an
enormous number of other creatures which have backbones, ribs, and legs, and
other parts arranged in the same general manner, and in all their formation
exhibiting the same broad peculiarities.
I am sure that you cannot have followed me even in this extremely elementary
exposition of the structural relations of animals, without seeing what I have been
driving at all through, which is, to show you that, step by step, naturalists have
come to the idea of a unity of plan, or conformity of construction, among animals
which appeared at first sight to be extremely dissimilar.
And here you have evidence of such a unity of plan among all the animals which
have backbones, and which we technically call Vertebrata. But there are
multitudes of other animals, such as crabs, lobsters, spiders, and so on, which we
term Annulosa. In these I could not point out to you the parts that correspond with
those of the Horse,—the backbone, for instance,—as they are constructed upon a
very different principle, which is also common to all of them; that is to say, the
Lobster, the Spider, and the Centipede, have a common plan running through their
whole arrangement, in just the same way that the Horse, the Dog, and the
Porpoise assimilate to each other.
Yet other creatures—whelks, cuttlefishes, oysters, snails, and all their tribe
(Mollusca)—resemble one another in the same way, but differ from both
Vertebrata and Annulosa; and the like is true of the animals called Cœlenterata
(Polypes) and Protozoa (animalcules and sponges).
Now, by pursuing this sort of comparison, naturalists have arrived at the
conviction that there are,—some think five, and some seven,—but certainly not
more than the latter number—and perhaps it is simpler to assume five—distinct
plans or constructions in the whole of the animal world; and that the hundreds of
thousands of species of creatures on the surface of the earth, are all reducible to
those five, or, at most, seven, plans of organization.
But can we go no further than that? When one has got so far, one is tempted to go
on a step and inquire whether we cannot go back yet further and bring down the
whole to modifications of one primordial unit. The anatomist cannot do this; but

if he call to his aid the study of development, he can do it. For we shall find that,
distinct as those plans are, whether it be a porpoise or man, or lobster, or any of
those other kinds I have mentioned, every one begins its existence with one and
the same primitive form,—that of the egg, consisting, as we have seen, of a
nitrogenous substance, having a small particle or nucleus in the centre of it.
Furthermore, the earlier changes of each are substantially the same. And it is in
this that lies that true “unity of organization” of the animal kingdom which has
been guessed at and fancied for many years; but which it has been left to the
present time to be demonstrated by the careful study of development. But is it
possible to go another step further still, and to show that in the same way the
whole of the organic world is reducible to one primitive condition of form? Is
there among the plants the same primitive form of organization, and is that
identical with that of the animal kingdom? The reply to that question, too, is not
uncertain or doubtful. It is now proved that every plant begins its existence under
the same form; that is to say, in that of a cell—a particle of nitrogenous matter
having substantially the same conditions. So that if you trace back the oak to its
first germ, or a man, or a horse, or lobster, or oyster, or any other animal you
choose to name, you shall find each and all of these commencing their existence
in forms essentially similar to each other: and, furthermore, that the first processes
of growth, and many of the subsequent modifications, are essentially the same in
principle in almost all.
In conclusion, let me, in a few words, recapitulate the positions which I have laid
down. And you must understand that I have not been talking mere theory; I have
been speaking of matters which are as plainly demonstrable as the commonest
propositions of Euclid—of facts that must form the basis of all speculations and
beliefs in Biological science. We have gradually traced down all organic forms,
or, in other words, we have analyzed the present condition of animated nature,
until we found that each species took its origin in a form similar to that under
which all the others commenced their existence. We have found the whole of the
vast array of living forms with which we are surrounded, constantly growing,
increasing, decaying, and disappearing; the animal constantly attracting,
modifying, and applying to its sustenance the matter of the vegetable kingdom,
which derived its support from the absorption and conversion of inorganic matter.
And so constant and universal is this absorption, waste, and reproduction, that it
may be said with perfect certainty that there is left in no one of our bodies at the
present moment a millionth part of the matter of which they were originally
formed! We have seen, again, that not only is the living matter derived from the
inorganic world, but that the forces of that matter are all of them correlative with
and convertible into those of inorganic nature.

This, for our present purposes, is the best view of the present condition of organic
nature which I can lay before you: it gives you the great outlines of a vast picture,
which you must fill up by your own study.
In the next lecture I shall endeavour in the same way to go back into the past, and
to sketch in the same broad manner the history of life in epochs preceding our
own.

V

THE PAST CONDITION OF ORGANIC NATURE.
In the lecture which I delivered last Monday evening, I endeavoured to sketch in a
very brief manner, but as well as the time at my disposal would permit, the
present condition of organic nature, meaning by that large title simply an
indication of the great, broad, and general principles which are to be discovered
by those who look attentively at the phenomena of organic nature as at present
displayed. The general result of our investigations might be summed up thus: we
found that the multiplicity of the forms of animal life, great as that may be, may
be reduced to a comparatively few primitive plans or types of construction; that a
further study of the development of those different forms revealed to us that they
were again reducible, until we at last brought the infinite diversity of animal, and
even vegetable life, down to the primordial form of a single cell.
We found that our analysis of the organic world, whether animals or plants,
showed, in the long run, that they might both be reduced into, and were, in fact,
composed of the same constituents. And we saw that the plant obtained the
materials constituting its substance by a peculiar combination of matters
belonging entirely to the inorganic world; that, then, the animal was constantly
appropriating the nitrogenous matters of the plant to its own nourishment, and
returning them back to the inorganic world, in what we spoke of as its waste; and
that, finally, when the animal ceased to exist, the constituents of its body were
dissolved and transmitted to that inorganic world whence they had been at first
abstracted. Thus we saw in both the blade of grass and the horse but the same
elements differently combined and arranged. We discovered a continual
circulation going on,—the plant drawing in the elements of inorganic nature and
combining them into food for the animal creation; the animal borrowing from the
plant the matter for its own support, giving off during its life products which
returned immediately to the inorganic world; and that, eventually, the constituent
materials of the whole structure of both animals and plants were thus returned to
their original source: there was a constant passage from one state of existence to
another, and a returning back again.
Lastly, when we endeavoured to form some notion of the nature of the forces
exercised by living beings, we discovered that they—if not capable of being

subjected to the same minute analysis as the constituents of those beings
themselves—that they were correlative with—that they were the equivalents of
the forces of inorganic nature—that they were, in the sense in which the term is
now used, convertible with them. That was our general result.
And now, leaving the Present, I must endeavour in the same manner to put before
you the facts that are to be discovered in the Past history of the living world, in
the past conditions of organic nature. We have, to-night, to deal with the facts of
that history—a history involving periods of time before which our mere human
records sink into utter insignificance—a history the variety and physical
magnitude of whose events cannot even be foreshadowed by the history of human
life and human phenomena—a history of the most varied and complex character.
We must deal with the history, then, in the first place, as we should deal with all
other histories. The historical student knows that his first business should be to
inquire into the validity of his evidence, and the nature of the record in which the
evidence is contained, that he may be able to form a proper estimate of the
correctness of the conclusions which have been drawn from that evidence. So,
here, we must pass, in the first place, to the consideration of a matter which may
seem foreign to the question under discussion. We must dwell upon the nature of
the records, and the credibility of the evidence they contain; we must look to the
completeness or incompleteness of those records themselves, before we turn to
that which they contain and reveal. The question of the credibility of the history,
happily for us, will not require much consideration, for, in this history, unlike
those of human origin, there can be no cavilling, no differences as to the reality
and truth of the facts of which it is made up; the facts state themselves, and are
laid out clearly before us.
But, although one of the greatest difficulties of the historical student is cleared out
of our path, there are other difficulties—difficulties in rightly interpreting the
facts as they are presented to us—which may be compared with the greatest
difficulties of any other kinds of historical study.
What is this record of the past history of the globe, and what are the questions
which are involved in an inquiry into its completeness or incompleteness? That
record is composed of mud; and the question which we have to investigate this
evening resolves itself into a question of the formation of mud. You may think,
perhaps, that this is a vast step—of almost from the sublime to the ridiculous—
from the contemplation of the history of the past ages of the world’s existence to
the consideration of the history of the formation of mud! But, in nature, there is
nothing mean and unworthy of attention; there is nothing ridiculous or

contemptible in any of her works; and this inquiry, you will soon see, I hope,
takes us to the very root and foundations of our subject.
How, then, is mud formed? Always, with some trifling exception, which I need
not consider now—always, as the result of the action of water, wearing down and
disintegrating the surface of the earth and rocks with which it comes in contact—
pounding and grinding it down, and carrying the particles away to places where
they cease to be disturbed by this mechanical action, and where they can subside
and rest. For the ocean, urged by winds, washes, as we know, a long extent of
coast, and every wave, loaded as it is with particles of sand and gravel as it breaks
upon the shore, does something towards the disintegrating process. And thus,
slowly but surely, the hardest rocks are gradually ground down to a powdery
substance; and the mud thus formed, coarser or finer, as the case may be, is
carried by the rush of the tides, or currents, till it reaches the comparatively
deeper parts of the ocean, in which it can sink to the bottom, that is, to parts
where there is a depth of about fourteen or fifteen fathoms, a depth at which the
water is, usually, nearly motionless, and in which, of course, the finer particles of
this detritus, or mud as we call it, sinks to the bottom.
Or, again, if you take a river, rushing down from its mountain sources, brawling
over the stones and rocks that intersect its path, loosening, removing, and carrying
with it in its downward course the pebbles and lighter matters from its banks, it
crushes and pounds down the rocks and earths in precisely the same way as the
wearing action of the sea waves. The matters forming the deposit are torn from
the mountain-side and whirled impetuously into the valley, more slowly over the
plain, thence into the estuary, and from the estuary they are swept into the sea.
The coarser and heavier fragments are obviously deposited first, that is, as soon as
the current begins to lose its force by becoming amalgamated with the stiller
depths of the ocean, but the finer and lighter particles are carried further on, and
eventually deposited in a deeper and stiller portion of the ocean.
It clearly follows from this that mud gives us a chronology; for it is evident that
supposing this, which I now sketch, to be the sea bottom, and supposing this to be
a coast-line; from the washing action of the sea upon the rock, wearing and
grinding it down into a sediment of mud, the mud will be carried down and, at
length, deposited in the deeper parts of this sea-bottom, where it will form a layer;
and then, while that first layer is hardening, other mud which is coming from the
same source will, of course, be carried to the same place; and, as it is quite
impossible for it to get beneath the layer already there, it deposits itself above it,
and forms another layer, and in that way you gradually have layers of mud

constantly forming and hardening one above the other, and conveying a record of
time.
It is a necessary result of the operation of the law of gravitation that the
uppermost layer shall be the youngest and the lowest the oldest, and that the
different beds shall be older at any particular point or spot in exactly the ratio of
their depth from the surface. So that if they were upheaved afterwards, and you
had a series of these different layers of mud, converted into sandstone, or
limestone, as the case might be, you might be sure that the bottom layer was
deposited first, and that the upper layers were formed afterwards. Here, you see,
is the first step in the history—these layers of mud give us an idea of time.
The whole surface of the earth,—I speak broadly, and leave out minor
qualifications,—is made up of such layers of mud, so hard, the majority of them,
that we call them rock, whether limestone or sandstone, or other varieties of rock.
And, seeing that every part of the crust of the earth is made up in this way, you
might think that the determination of the chronology, the fixing of the time which
it has taken to form this crust is a comparatively simple matter. Take a broad
average, ascertain how fast the mud is deposited upon the bottom of the sea, or in
the estuary of rivers; take it to be an inch, or two, or three inches a year, or
whatever you may roughly estimate it at; then take the total thickness of the
whole series of stratified rocks, which geologists estimate at twelve or thirteen
miles, or about seventy thousand feet, make a sum in short division, divide the
total thickness by that of the quantity deposited in one year, and the result will, of
course, give you the number of years which the crust has taken to form.
Truly, that looks a very simple process! It would be so except for certain
difficulties, the very first of which is that of finding how rapidly sediments are
deposited; but the main difficulty—a difficulty which renders any certain
calculations of such a matter out of the question—is this, the sea-bottom on which
the deposit takes place is continually shifting.
Instead of the surface of the earth being that stable, fixed thing that it is popularly
believed to be, being, in common parlance, the very emblem of fixity itself, it is
incessantly moving, and is, in fact, as unstable as the surface of the sea, except
that its undulations are infinitely slower and enormously higher and deeper.
Now, what is the effect of this oscillation? Take the case to which I have
previously referred. The finer or coarser sediments that are carried down by the
current of the river will only be carried out a certain distance, and eventually, as
we have already seen, on reaching the stiller part of the ocean, will be deposited
at the bottom.

Let C y (Fig. 35) be the sea-bottom, y D the shore, x y the sea-level, then the
coarser deposit will subside over the region B, the finer over A, while beyond A
there will be no deposit at all; and, consequently, no record will be kept, simply
because no deposit is going on. Now, suppose that the whole land, C, D, which
we have regarded as stationary, goes down, as it does so, both A and B go further
out from the shore, which will be at y1, x1 y1, being the new sea-level. The
consequence will be that the layer of mud (A), being now, for the most part,
further than the force of the current is strong enough to convey even the finest
débris, will, of course, receive no more deposits, and having attained a certain
thickness, will now grow no thicker.

Fig. 35.

We should be misled in taking the thickness of that layer, whenever it may be
exposed to our view, as a record of time in the manner in which we are now
regarding this subject, as it would give us only an imperfect and partial record: it
would seem to represent too short a period of time.
Suppose, on the other hand, that the land (C D) had gone on rising slowly and
gradually—say an inch or two inches in the course of a century,—what would be
the practical effect of that movement? Why, that the sediment A and B which has
been already deposited, would eventually be brought nearer to the shore-level,
and again subjected to the wear and tear of the sea; and directly the sea begins to
act upon it, it would of course soon cut up and carry it away, to a greater or less
extent, to be re-deposited further out.
Well, as there is, in all probability, not one single spot on the whole surface of the
earth, which has not been up and down in this way a great many times, it follows
that the thickness of the deposits formed at any particular spot cannot be taken
(even supposing we had at first obtained correct data as to the rate at which they
took place) as affording reliable information as to the period of time occupied in

its deposit. So that you see it is absolutely necessary from these facts, seeing that
our record entirely consists of accumulations of mud, superimposed one on the
other; seeing in the next place that any particular spots on which accumulations
have occurred, have been constantly moving up and down, and sometimes out of
the reach of a deposit, and at other times its own deposit broken up and carried
away, it follows that our record must be in the highest degree imperfect, and we
have hardly a trace left of thick deposits, or any definite knowledge of the area
that they occupied in a great many cases. And mark this! That supposing even that
the whole surface of the earth had been accessible to the geologist,—that man had
had access to every part of the earth, and had made sections of the whole, and put
them all together,—even then his record must of necessity be imperfect.
But to how much has man really access? If you will look at this Map you will see
that it represents the proportion of the sea to the earth: this coloured part indicates
all the dry land, and this other portion is the water. You will notice at once that the
water covers three-fifths of the whole surface of the globe, and has covered it in
the same manner ever since man has kept any record of his own observations, to
say nothing of the minute period during which he has cultivated geological
inquiry. So that three-fifths of the surface of the earth is shut out from us because
it is under the sea. Let us look at the other two-fifths, and see what are the
countries in which anything that may be termed searching geological inquiry has
been carried out: a good deal of France, Germany, and Great Britain and Ireland,
bits of Spain, of Italy, and of Russia, have been examined, but of the whole great
mass of Africa, except parts of the southern extremity, we know next to nothing;
little bits of India, but of the greater part of the Asiatic continent nothing; bits of
the Northern American States and of Canada, but of the greater part of the
continent of North America, and in still larger proportion, of South America,
nothing!
Under these circumstances, it follows that even with reference to that kind of
imperfect information which we can possess, it is only of about the ten-
thousandth part of the accessible parts of the earth that has been examined
properly. Therefore, it is with justice that the most thoughtful of those who are
concerned in these inquiries insist continually upon the imperfection of the
geological record; for, I repeat, it is absolutely necessary, from the nature of
things, that that record should be of the most fragmentary and imperfect character.
Unfortunately this circumstance has been constantly forgotten. Men of science,
like young colts in a fresh pasture, are apt to be exhilarated on being turned into a
new field of inquiry, to go off at a hand-gallop, in total disregard of hedges and
ditches, to lose sight of the real limitation of their inquiries, and to forget the
extreme imperfection of what is really known. Geologists have imagined that they

could tell us what was going on at all parts of the earth’s surface during a given
epoch; they have talked of this deposit being contemporaneous with that deposit,
until, from our little local histories of the changes at limited spots of the earth’s
surface, they have constructed a universal history of the globe as full of wonders
and portents as any other story of antiquity.
But what does this attempt to construct a universal history of the globe imply? It
implies that we shall not only have a precise knowledge of the events which have
occurred at any particular point, but that we shall be able to say what events, at
any one spot, took place at the same time with those at other spots.
Let us see how far that is in the nature of things practicable. Suppose that here I
make a section of the Lake of Killarney, and here the section of another lake—
that of Loch Lomond in Scotland for instance. The rivers that flow into them are
constantly carrying down deposits of mud, and beds, or strata, are being as
constantly formed, one above the other, at the bottom of those lakes. Now, there is
not a shadow of doubt that in these two lakes the lower beds are all older than the
upper—there is no doubt about that; but what does this tell us about the age of
any given bed in Loch Lomond, as compared with that of any given bed in the
Lake of Killarney? It is, indeed, obvious that if any two sets of deposits are
separated and discontinuous, there is absolutely no means whatever given you by
the nature of the deposit of saying whether one is much younger or older than the
other; but you may say, as many have said and think, that the case is very much
altered if the beds which we are comparing are continuous. Suppose two beds of
mud hardened into rock,—A and B are seen in section (Fig. 36.)

Fig. 36.

Well, you say, it is admitted that the lowermost bed is always the older. Very well;
B, therefore, is older than A. No doubt, as a whole, it is so; or if any parts of the
two beds which are in the same vertical line are compared, it is so. But suppose
you take what seems a very natural step further, and say that the part a of the bed
A is younger than the part b of the bed B. Is this sound reasoning? If you find any

record of changes taking place at b, did they occur before any events which took
place while a was being deposited? It looks all very plain sailing, indeed, to say
that they did; and yet there is no proof of anything of the kind. As the former
Director of this Institution, Sir H. De la Beche, long ago showed, this reasoning
may involve an entire fallacy. It is extremely possible that a may have been
deposited ages before b. It is very easy to understand how that can be. To return to
Fig. 35; when A and B were deposited, they were substantially contemporaneous;
A being simply the finer deposit, and B the coarser of the same detritus or waste
of land. Now suppose that that sea-bottom goes down (as shown in Fig. 35), so
that the first deposit is carried no farther than a, forming the bed A1, and the
coarse no farther than b, forming the bed B1, the result will be the formation of
two continuous beds, one of fine sediment (A A1) over-lapping another of coarse
sediment (B B1). Now suppose the whole sea-bottom is raised up, and a section
exposed about the point A1; no doubt, at this spot, the upper bed is younger than
the lower. But we should obviously greatly err if we concluded that the mass of
the upper bed at A was younger than the lower bed at B; for we have just seen that
they are contemporaneous deposits. Still more should we be in error if we
supposed the upper bed at A to be younger than the continuation of the lower bed
at B1; for A was deposited long before B1. In fine, if, instead of comparing
immediately adjacent parts of two beds, one of which lies upon another, we
compare distant parts, it is quite possible that the upper may be any number of
years older than the under, and the under any number of years younger than the
upper.
Now you must not suppose that I put this before you for the purpose of raising a
paradoxical difficulty; the fact is, that the great mass of deposits have taken place
in sea-bottoms which are gradually sinking, and have been formed under the very
conditions I am here supposing.
Do not run away with the notion that this subverts the principle I laid down at
first. The error lies in extending a principle which is perfectly applicable to
deposits in the same vertical line to deposits which are not in that relation to one
another.
It is in consequence of circumstances of this kind, and of others that I might
mention to you, that our conclusions on and interpretations of the record are really
and strictly only valid so long as we confine ourselves to one vertical section. I do
not mean to tell you that there are no qualifying circumstances, so that, even in
very considerable areas, we may safely speak of conformably superimposed beds
being older or younger than others at many different points. But we can never be
quite sure in coming to that conclusion, and especially we cannot be sure if there

is any break in their continuity, or any very great distance between the points to
be compared.
Well now, so much for the record itself,—so much for its imperfections,—so
much for the conditions to be observed in interpreting it, and its chronological
indications, the moment we pass beyond the limits of a vertical linear section.
Now let us pass from the record to that which it contains,—from the book itself to
the writing and the figures on its pages. This writing and these figures consist of
remains of animals and plants which, in the great majority of cases, have lived
and died in the very spot in which we now find them, or at least in the immediate
vicinity. You must all of you be aware—and I referred to the fact in my last
lecture—that there are vast numbers of creatures living at the bottom of the sea.
These creatures, like all others, sooner or later die, and their shells and hard parts
lie at the bottom; and then the fine mud which is being constantly brought down
by rivers and the action of the wear and tear of the sea, covers them over and
protects them from any further change or alteration; and, of course, as in process
of time the mud becomes hardened and solidified, the shells of these animals are
preserved and firmly embedded in the limestone or sandstone which is being thus
formed. You may see in the galleries of the Museum upstairs specimens of
limestones in which such fossil remains of existing animals are embedded. There
are some specimens in which turtles’ eggs have been embedded in calcareous
sand, and before the sun had hatched the young turtles, they became covered over
with calcareous mud, and thus have been preserved and fossilized.
Not only does this process of embedding and fossilization occur with marine and
other aquatic animals and plants, but it affects those land animals and plants
which are drifted away to sea, or become buried in bogs or morasses; and the
animals which have been trodden down by their fellows and crushed in the mud
at the river’s bank, as the herd have come to drink. In any of these cases, the
organisms may be crushed or be mutilated, before or after putrefaction, in such a
manner that perhaps only a part will be left in the form in which it reaches us. It
is, indeed, a most remarkable fact, that it is quite an exceptional case to find a
skeleton of any one of all the thousands of wild land animals that we know are
constantly being killed, or dying in the course of nature: they are preyed on and
devoured by other animals, or die in places where their bodies are not afterwards
protected by mud. There are other animals existing in the sea, the shells of which
form exceedingly large deposits. You are probably aware that before the attempt
was made to lay the Atlantic telegraphic cable, the Government employed vessels
in making a series of very careful observations and soundings of the bottom of the
Atlantic; and although, as we must all regret, that up to the present time that

project has not succeeded, we have the satisfaction of knowing that it yielded
some most remarkable results to science. The Atlantic Ocean had to be sounded
right across, to depths of several miles in some places, and the nature of its
bottom was carefully ascertained. Well, now, a space of about 1000 miles wide
from east to west, and I do not exactly know how many from north to south, but
at any rate 600 or 700 miles, was carefully examined, and it was found that over
the whole of that immense area an excessively fine chalky mud is being
deposited; and this deposit is entirely made up of animals whose hard parts are
deposited in this part of the ocean, and are doubtless gradually acquiring solidity
and becoming metamorphosed into a chalky limestone. Thus, you see, it is quite
possible in this way to preserve unmistakable records of animal and vegetable
life. Whenever the sea-bottom, by some of those undulations of the earth’s crust
that I have referred to, becomes upheaved, and sections or borings are made, or
pits are dug, then we become able to examine the contents and constituents of
these ancient sea-bottoms, and find out what manner of animals lived at that
period.
Now it is a very important consideration in its bearing on the completeness of the
record, to inquire how far the remains contained in these fossiliferous limestones
are able to convey anything like an accurate or complete account of the animals
which were in existence at the time of its formation. Upon that point we can form
a very clear judgment, and one in which there is no possible room for any
mistake. There are of course a great number of animals—such as jelly-fishes, and
other animals—without any hard parts, of which we cannot reasonably expect to
find any traces whatever: there is nothing of them to preserve. Within a very short
time, you will have noticed, after they are removed from the water, they dry up to
a mere nothing; certainly they are not of a nature to leave any very visible traces
of their existence on such bodies as chalk or mud. Then again, look at land
animals; it is, as I have said, a very uncommon thing to find a land animal entire
after death. Insects and other carnivorous animals very speedily pull them to
pieces, putrefaction takes place, and so, out of the hundreds of thousands that are
known to die every year, it is the rarest thing in the world to see one embedded in
such a way that its remains would be preserved for a lengthened period. Not only
is this the case, but even when animal remains have been safely embedded,
certain natural agents may wholly destroy and remove them.
Almost all the hard parts of animals—the bones and so on—are composed chiefly
of phosphate of lime and carbonate of lime. Some years ago, I had to make an
inquiry into the nature of some very curious fossils sent to me from the North of
Scotland. Fossils are usually hard bony structures that have become embedded in
the way I have described, and have gradually acquired the nature and solidity of

the body with which they are associated; but in this case I had a series of holes in
some pieces of rock, and nothing else. Those holes, however, had a certain
definite shape about them, and when I got a skilful workman to make castings of
the interior of these holes, I found that they were the impressions of the joints of a
backbone and of the armour of a great reptile, twelve or more feet long. This great
beast had died and got buried in the sand, the sand had gradually hardened over
the bones, but remained porous. Water had trickled through it, and that water
being probably charged with a superfluity of carbonic acid, had dissolved all the
phosphate and carbonate of lime, and the bones themselves had thus decayed and
entirely disappeared; but as the sandstone happened to have consolidated by that
time, the precise shape of the bones was retained. If that sandstone had remained
soft a little longer, we should have known nothing whatsoever of the existence of
the reptile whose bones it had encased.
How certain it is that a vast number of animals which have existed at one period
on this earth have entirely perished, and left no trace whatever of their forms, may
be proved to you by other considerations. There are large tracts of sandstone in
various parts of the world, in which nobody has yet found anything but footsteps.
Not a bone of any description, but an enormous number of traces of footsteps.
There is no question about them. There is a whole valley in Connecticut covered
with these footsteps, and not a single fragment of the animals which made them
have yet been found. Let me mention another case while upon that matter, which
is even more surprising than those to which I have yet referred. There is a
limestone formation near Oxford, at a place called Stonesfield, which has yielded
the remains of certain very interesting mammalian animals, and up to this time, if
I recollect rightly, there have been found seven specimens of its lower jaws, and
not a bit of anything else, neither limb-bones nor skull, or any part whatever; not
a fragment of the whole system! Of course, it would be preposterous to imagine
that the beasts had nothing else but a lower jaw! The probability is, as Dr.
Buckland showed, as the result of his observations on dead dogs in the river
Thames, that the lower jaw, not being secured by very firm ligaments to the bones
of the head, and being a weighty affair, would easily be knocked off, or might
drop away from the body as it floated in water in a state of decomposition. The
jaw would thus be deposited immediately, while the rest of the body would float
and drift away altogether, ultimately reaching the sea, and perhaps becoming
destroyed. The jaw becomes covered up and preserved in the river silt, and thus it
comes that we have such a curious circumstance as that of the lower jaws in the
Stonesfield slates. So that, you see, faulty as these layers of stone in the earth’s
crust are, defective as they necessarily are as a record, the account of

contemporaneous vital phenomena presented by them is, by the necessity of the
case, infinitely more defective and fragmentary.
It was necessary that I should put all this very strongly before you, because,
otherwise, you might have been led to think differently of the completeness of our
knowledge by the next facts I shall state to you.
The researches of the last three-quarters of a century have, in truth, revealed a
wonderful richness of organic life in those rocks. Certainly not fewer than thirty
or forty thousand different species of fossils have been discovered. You have no
more ground for doubting that these creatures really lived and died at or near the
places in which we find them than you have for like scepticism about a shell on
the sea-shore. The evidence is as good in the one case as in the other.
Our next business is to look at the general character of these fossil remains, and it
is a subject which will be requisite to consider carefully; and the first point for us
is to examine how much the extinct Flora and Fauna as a whole—disregarding
altogether the succession of their constituents, of which I shall speak afterwards
—differ from the Flora and Fauna of the present day;—how far they differ in
what we do know about them, leaving altogether out of consideration
speculations based on what we do not know.
I strongly imagine that if it were not for the peculiar appearance that fossilized
animals have, that any of you might readily walk through a museum which
contains fossil remains mixed up with those of the present forms of life, and I
doubt very much whether your uninstructed eyes would lead you to see any vast
or wonderful difference between the two. If you looked closely, you would notice,
in the first place, a great many things very like animals with which you are
acquainted now: you would see differences of shape and proportion, but on the
whole a close similarity.
I explained what I meant by Orders the other day, when I described the animal
kingdom as being divided into sub-kingdoms, classes, and orders. If you divide
the animal kingdom into orders, you will find that there are above one hundred
and twenty. The number may vary on one side or the other, but this is a fair
estimate. That is the sum total of the orders of all the animals which we know
now, and which have been known in past times, and left remains behind.
Now, how many of those are absolutely extinct? That is to say, how many of these
orders of animals have lived at a former period of the world’s history, but have at
present no representatives? That is the sense in which I meant to use the word
“extinct.” I mean that those animals did live on this earth at one time, but have

left no one of their kind with us at the present moment. So that estimating the
number of extinct animals is a sort of way of comparing the past creation as a
whole with the present as a whole. Among the mammalia and birds there are none
extinct; but when we come to the reptiles there is a most wonderful thing: out of
the eight orders, or thereabouts, which you can make among reptiles, one-half are
extinct. These diagrams of the plesiosaurus, the ichthyosaurus, the pterodactyle,
give you a notion of some of these extinct reptiles. And here is a cast of the
pterodactyle and bones of the ichthyosaurus and the plesiosaurus, just as fresh as
if it had been recently dug up in a churchyard. Thus, in the reptile class, there are
no less than half of the orders which are absolutely extinct. If we turn to the
Amphibia, there was one extinct order, the Labyrinthodonts, typified by the large
salamander-like beast shown in this diagram.
No order of fishes is known to be extinct. Every fish that we find in the strata—to
which I have been referring—can be identified and placed in one of the orders
which exist at the present day. There is not known to be a single ordinal form of
insect extinct. There are only two orders extinct among the Crustacea. There is
not known to be an extinct order of these creatures, the parasitic and other worms;
but there are two, not to say three, absolutely extinct orders of this class, the
Echinodermata; out of all the orders of the Cœlenterata and Protozoa only one,
the Rugose Corals.
So that, you see, out of somewhere about 120 orders of animals, taking them
altogether, you will not, at the outside estimate, find above ten or a dozen extinct.
Summing up all the orders of animals which have left remains behind them, you
will not find above ten or a dozen which cannot be arranged with those of the
present day; that is to say, that the difference does not amount to much more than
ten per cent.: and the proportion of extinct orders of plants is still smaller. I think
that that is a very astounding, a most astonishing fact: seeing the enormous
epochs of time which have elapsed during the constitution of the surface of the
earth as it at present exists; it is, indeed, a most astounding thing that the
proportion of extinct ordinal types should be so exceedingly small.
But now, there is another point of view in which we must look at this past
creation. Suppose that we were to sink a vertical pit through the floor beneath us,
and that I could succeed in making a section right through in the direction of New
Zealand, I should find in each of the different beds through which I passed the
remains of animals which I should find in that stratum and not in the others. First,
I should come upon beds of gravel or drift containing the bones of large animals,
such as the elephant, rhinoceros, and cave tiger. Rather curious things to fall
across in Piccadilly! If I should dig lower still, I should come upon a bed of what

we call the London clay, and in this, as you will see in our galleries upstairs, are
found remains of strange cattle, remains of turtles, palms, and large tropical fruits;
with shell-fish such as you see the like of now only in tropical regions. If I went
below that, I should come upon the chalk, and there I should find something
altogether different, the remains of ichthyosauri and pterodactyles, and
ammonites, and so forth.
I do not know what Mr. Godwin Austin would say comes next, but probably rocks
containing more ammonites, and more ichthyosauri and plesiosauri, with a vast
number of other things; and under that I should meet with yet older rocks,
containing numbers of strange shells and fishes; and in thus passing from the
surface to the lowest depths of the earth’s crust, the forms of animal life and
vegetable life which I should meet with in the successive beds would, looking at
them broadly, be the more different the further that I went down. Or, in other
words, inasmuch as we started with the clear principle, that in a series of
naturally-disposed mud beds the lowest are the oldest, we should come to this
result, that the farther we go back in time the more difference exists between the
animal and vegetable life of an epoch and that which now exists. That was the
conclusion to which I wished to bring you at the end of this Lecture.

VI

THE METHOD BY WHICH THE CAUSES OF THE
PRESENT AND PAST CONDITIONS OF ORGANIC
NATURE ARE TO BE DISCOVERED.—THE
ORIGINATION OF LIVING BEINGS.
In the two preceding lectures I have endeavoured to indicate to you the extent of
the subject-matter of the inquiry upon which we are engaged; and having thus
acquired some conception of the Past and Present phenomena of Organic Nature,
I must now turn to that which constitutes the great problem which we have set
before ourselves;—I mean, the question of what knowledge we have of the causes
of these phenomena of organic nature, and how such knowledge is obtainable.
Here, on the threshold of the inquiry, an objection meets us. There are in the
world a number of extremely worthy, well-meaning persons, whose judgments
and opinions are entitled to the utmost respect on account of their sincerity, who
are of opinion that Vital Phenomena, and especially all questions relating to the
origin of vital phenomena, are questions quite apart from the ordinary run of
inquiry, and are, by their very nature, placed out of our reach. They say that all
these phenomena originated miraculously, or in some way totally different from
the ordinary course of nature, and that therefore they conceive it to be futile, not
to say presumptuous, to attempt to inquire into them.
To such sincere and earnest persons, I would only say, that a question of this kind
is not to be shelved upon theoretical or speculative grounds. You may remember
the story of the Sophist who demonstrated to Diogenes in the most complete and
satisfactory manner that he could not walk; that, in fact, all motion was an
impossibility; and that Diogenes refuted him by simply getting up and walking
round his tub. So, in the same way, the man of science replies to objections of this
kind, by simply getting up and walking onward, and showing what science has
done and is doing,—by pointing to that immense mass of facts which have been
ascertained and systematized under the forms of the great doctrines of
Morphology, of Development, of Distribution, and the like. He sees an enormous
mass of facts and laws relating to organic beings, which stand on the same good

sound foundation as every other natural law. With this mass of facts and laws
before us, therefore, seeing that, as far as organic matters have hitherto been
accessible and studied, they have shown themselves capable of yielding to
scientific investigation, we may accept this as proof that order and law reign there
as well as in the rest of nature. The man of science says nothing to objectors of
this sort, but supposes that we can and shall walk to a knowledge of the origin of
organic nature, in the same way that we have walked to a knowledge of the laws
and principles of the inorganic world.
But there are objectors who say the same from ignorance and ill-will. To such I
would reply that the objection comes ill from them, and that the real presumption,
I may almost say the real blasphemy, in this matter, is in the attempt to limit that
inquiry into the causes of phenomena, which is the source of all human blessings,
and from which has sprung all human prosperity and progress; for, after all, we
can accomplish comparatively little; the limited range of our own faculties
bounds us on every side,—the field of our powers of observation is small enough,
and he who endeavours to narrow the sphere of our inquiries is only pursuing a
course that is likely to produce the greatest harm to his fellow-men.
But now, assuming, as we all do, I hope, that these phenomena are properly
accessible to inquiry, and setting out upon our search into the causes of the
phenomena of organic nature, or, at any rate, setting out to discover how much we
at present know upon these abstruse matters, the question arises as to what is to
be our course of proceeding, and what method we must lay down for our
guidance. I reply to that question, that our method must be exactly the same as
that which is pursued in any other scientific inquiry, the method of scientific
investigation being the same for all orders of facts and phenomena whatsoever.
I must dwell a little on this point, for I wish you to leave this room with a very
clear conviction that scientific investigation is not, as many people seem to
suppose, some kind of modern black art. I say that you might easily gather this
impression from the manner in which many persons speak of scientific inquiry, or
talk about, inductive and deductive philosophy, or the principles of the “Baconian
philosophy.” I do protest that, of the vast number of cants in this world, there are
none, to my mind, so contemptible as the pseudo-scientific cant which is talked
about the “Baconian philosophy.”
To hear people talk about the great Chancellor,—and a very great man he
certainly was,—you would think that it was he who had invented science, and that
there was no such thing as sound reasoning before the time of Queen Elizabeth!
Of course you say, that cannot possibly be true; you perceive, on a moment’s

reflection, that such an idea is absurdly wrong; and yet, so firmly rooted is this
sort of impression,—I cannot call it an idea, or conception,—the thing is too
absurd to be entertained,—but so completely does it exist at the bottom of most
men’s minds, that this has been a matter of observation with me for many years
past. There are many men who, though knowing absolutely nothing of the subject
with which they may be dealing, wish, nevertheless, to damage the author of
some view with which they think fit to disagree. What they do, then, is not to go
and learn something about the subject, which one would naturally think the best
way of fairly dealing with it; but they abuse the originator of the view they
question, in a general manner, and wind up by saying that, “After all, you know,
the principles and method of this author are totally opposed to the canons of the
Baconian philosophy.” Then everybody applauds, as a matter of course, and
agrees that it must be so. But if you were to stop them all in the middle of their
applause, you would probably find that neither the speaker nor his applauders
could tell you how or in what way it was so; neither the one nor the other having
the slightest idea of what they mean when they speak of the “Baconian
philosophy.”
You will understand, I hope, that I have not the slightest desire to join in the
outcry against either the morals, the intellect, or the great genius of Lord
Chancellor Bacon. He was undoubtedly a very great man, let people say what
they will of him; but notwithstanding all that he did for philosophy, it would be
entirely wrong to suppose that the methods of modern scientific inquiry
originated with him, or with his age; they originated with the first man, whoever
he was; and indeed existed long before him, for many of the essential processes of
reasoning are exerted by the higher order of brutes as completely and effectively
as by ourselves. We see in many of the brute creation the exercise of one, at least,
of the same powers of reasoning as that which we ourselves employ.
The method of scientific investigation is nothing but the expression of the
necessary mode of working of the human mind. It is simply the mode at which all
phenomena are reasoned about, rendered precise and exact. There is no more
difference, but there is just the same kind of difference, between the mental
operations of a man of science and those of an ordinary person, as there is
between the operations and methods of a baker or of a butcher weighing out his
goods in common scales, and the operations of a chemist in performing a difficult
and complex analysis by means of his balance and finely-graduated weights. It is
not that the action of the scales in the one case, and the balance in the other, differ
in the principles of their construction or manner of working; but the beam of one
is set on an infinitely finer axis than the other, and of course turns by the addition
of a much smaller weight.

You will understand this better, perhaps, if I give you some familiar example. You
have all heard it repeated, I dare say, that men of science work by means of
Induction and Deduction, and that by the help of these operations, they, in a sort
of sense, wring from Nature certain other things, which are called Natural Laws,
and Causes, and that out of these, by some cunning skill of their own, they build
up Hypotheses and Theories. And it is imagined by many, that the operations of
the common mind can be by no means compared with these processes, and that
they have to be acquired by a sort of special apprenticeship to the craft. To hear
all these large words, you would think that the mind of a man of science must be
constituted differently from that of his fellow-men; but if you will not be
frightened by terms, you will discover that you are quite wrong, and that all these
terrible apparatus are being used by yourselves every day and every hour of your
lives.
There is a well-known incident in one of Molière’s plays, where the author makes
the hero express unbounded delight on being told that he had been talking prose
during the whole of his life. In the same way, I trust, that you will take comfort,
and be delighted with yourselves, on the discovery that you have been acting on
the principles of inductive and deductive philosophy during the same period.
Probably there is not one here who has not in the course of the day had occasion
to set in motion a complex train of reasoning, of the very same kind, though
differing of course in degree, as that which a scientific man goes through in
tracing the causes of natural phenomena.
A very trivial circumstance will serve to exemplify this. Suppose you go into a
fruiterer’s shop, wanting an apple,—you take up one, and, on biting it, you find it
is sour; you look at it, and see that it is hard and green. You take up another one,
and that too is hard, green, and sour. The shopman offers you a third; but, before
biting it, you examine it, and find that it is hard and green, and you immediately
say that you will not have it, as it must be sour, like those that you have already
tried.
Nothing can be more simple than that, you think; but if you will take the trouble
to analyze and trace out into its logical elements what has been done by the mind,
you will be greatly surprised. In the first place, you have performed the operation
of Induction. You found that, in two experiences, hardness and greenness in
apples went together with sourness. It was so in the first case, and it was
confirmed by the second. True, it is a very small basis, but still it is enough to
make an induction from; you generalize the facts, and you expect to find sourness
in apples where you get hardness and greenness. You found upon that a general
law, that all hard and green apples are sour; and that, so far as it goes, is a perfect

induction. Well, having got your natural law in this way, when you are offered
another apple which you find is hard and green, you say, “All hard and green
apples are sour; this apple is hard and green, therefore this apple is sour.” That
train of reasoning is what logicians call a syllogism, and has all its various parts
and terms,—its major premiss, its minor premiss, and its conclusion. And, by the
help of further reasoning, which, if drawn out, would have to be exhibited in two
or three other syllogisms, you arrive at your final determination, “I will not have
that apple.” So that, you see, you have, in the first place, established a law by
Induction, and upon that you have founded a Deduction, and reasoned out the
special conclusion of the particular case. Well now, suppose, having got your law,
that at some time afterwards, you are discussing the qualities of apples with a
friend: you will say to him, “It is a very curious thing,—but I find that all hard
and green apples are sour!” Your friend says to you, “But how do you know
that?” You at once reply, “Oh, because I have tried them over and over again, and
have always found them to be so.” Well, if we were talking science instead of
common sense, we should call that an Experimental Verification. And, if still
opposed, you go further, and say, “I have heard from the people in Somersetshire
and Devonshire, where a large number of apples are grown, that they have
observed the same thing. It is also found to be the case in Normandy, and in North
America. In short, I find it to be the universal experience of mankind wherever
attention has been directed to the subject.” Whereupon, your friend, unless he is a
very unreasonable man, agrees with you, and is convinced that you are quite right
in the conclusion you have drawn. He believes, although perhaps he does not
know he believes it, that the more extensive Verifications are,—that the more
frequently experiments have been made, and results of the same kind arrived at,—
that the more varied the conditions under which the same results are attained, the
more certain is the ultimate conclusion, and he disputes the question no further.
He sees that the experiment has been tried under all sorts of conditions, as to time,
place, and people, with the same result; and he says with you, therefore, that the
law you have laid down must be a good one, and he must believe it.
In science we do the same thing;—the philosopher exercises precisely the same
faculties, though in a much more delicate manner. In scientific inquiry it becomes
a matter of duty to expose a supposed law to every possible kind of verification,
and to take care, moreover, that this is done intentionally, and not left to a mere
accident, as in the case of the apples. And in science, as in common life, our
confidence in a law is in exact proportion to the absence of variation in the result
of our experimental verifications. For instance, if you let go your grasp of an
article you may have in your hand, it will immediately fall to the ground. That is a
very common verification of one of the best established laws of nature—that of

gravitation. The method by which men of science establish the existence of that
law is exactly the same as that by which we have established the trivial
proposition about the sourness of hard and green apples. But we believe it in such
an extensive, thorough, and unhesitating manner because the universal experience
of mankind verifies it, and we can verify it ourselves at any time; and that is the
strongest possible foundation on which any natural law can rest.
So much, then, by way of proof that the method of establishing laws in science is
exactly the same as that pursued in common life. Let us now turn to another
matter, (though really it is but another phase of the same question,) and that is, the
method by which, from the relations of certain phenomena, we prove that some
stand in the position of causes towards the others.
I want to put the case clearly before you, and I will therefore show you what I
mean by another familiar example. I will suppose that one of you, on coming
down in the morning to the parlour of your house, finds that a tea-pot and some
spoons which had been left in the room on the previous evening are gone,—the
window is open, and you observe the mark of a dirty hand on the window-frame,
and perhaps, in addition to that, you notice the impress of a hob-nailed shoe on
the gravel outside. All these phenomena have struck your attention instantly, and
before two seconds have passed you say, “Oh, somebody has broken open the
window, entered the room, and run off with the spoons and the tea-pot!” That
speech is out of your mouth in a moment. And you will probably add, “I know
there has; I am quite sure of it!” You mean to say exactly what you know; but in
reality you are giving expression to what is, in all essential particulars, an
Hypothesis. You do not know it at all; it is nothing but an hypothesis rapidly
framed in your own mind! And, it is an hypothesis founded on a long train of
inductions and deductions.
What are those inductions and deductions, and how have you got at this
hypothesis? You have observed, in the first place, that the window is open; but by
a train of reasoning involving many Inductions and Deductions, you have
probably arrived long before at the General Law—and a very good one it is—that
windows do not open of themselves; and you therefore conclude that something
has opened the window. A second general law that you have arrived at in the same
way is, that tea-pots and spoons do not go out of a window spontaneously, and
you are satisfied that, as they are not now where you left them, they have been
removed. In the third place, you look at the marks on the window-sill, and the
shoe-marks outside, and you say that in all previous experience the former kind of
mark has never been produced by anything else but the hand of a human being;
and the same experience shows that no other animal but man at present wears

shoes with hob-nails in them such as would produce the marks in the gravel. I do
not know, even if we could discover any of those “missing links” that are talked
about, that they would help us to any other conclusion! At any rate the law which
states our present experience is strong enough for my present purpose. You next
reach the conclusion, that as these kinds of marks have not been left by any other
animals than men, or are liable to be formed in any other way than by a man’s
hand and shoe, the marks in question have been formed by a man in that way. You
have, further, a general law, founded on observation and experience, and that, too,
is, I am sorry to say, a very universal and unimpeachable one,—that some men
are thieves; and you assume at once from all these premisses—and that is what
constitutes your hypothesis—that the man who made the marks outside and on
the window-sill, opened the window, got into the room, and stole your tea-pot and
spoons. You have now arrived at a Vera Causa;—you have assumed a Cause
which it is plain is competent to produce all the phenomena you have observed.
You can explain all these phenomena only by the hypothesis of a thief. But that is
a hypothetical conclusion, of the justice of which you have no absolute proof at
all; it is only rendered highly probable by a series of inductive and deductive
reasonings.
I suppose your first action, assuming that you are a man of ordinary common
sense, and that you have established this hypothesis to your own satisfaction, will
very likely be to go off for the police, and set them on the track of the burglar,
with the view to the recovery of your property. But just as you are starting with
this object, some person comes in, and on learning what you are about, says, “My
good friend, you are going on a great deal too fast. How do you know that the
man who really made the marks took the spoons? It might have been a monkey
that took them, and the man may have merely looked in afterwards.” You would
probably reply, “Well, that is all very well, but you see it is contrary to all
experience of the way tea-pots and spoons are abstracted; so that, at any rate, your
hypothesis is less probable than mine.” While you are talking the thing over in
this way, another friend arrives, one of that good kind of people that I was talking
of a little while ago. And he might say, “Oh, my dear sir, you are certainly going
on a great deal too fast. You are most presumptuous. You admit that all these
occurrences took place when you were fast asleep, at a time when you could not
possibly have known anything about what was taking place. How do you know
that the laws of Nature are not suspended during the night? It may be that there
has been some kind of supernatural interference in this case.” In point of fact, he
declares that your hypothesis is one of which you cannot at all demonstrate the
truth, and that you are by no means sure that the laws of Nature are the same
when you are asleep as when you are awake.

Well, now, you cannot at the moment answer that kind of reasoning. You feel that
your worthy friend has you somewhat at a disadvantage. You will feel perfectly
convinced in your own mind, however, that you are quite right, and you say to
him, “My good friend, I can only be guided by the natural probabilities of the
case, and if you will be kind enough to stand aside and permit me to pass, I will
go and fetch the police.” Well, we will suppose that your journey is successful,
and that by good luck you meet with a policeman; that eventually the burglar is
found with your property on his person, and the marks correspond to his hand and
to his boots. Probably any jury would consider those facts a very good
experimental verification of your hypothesis, touching the cause of the abnormal
phenomena observed in your parlour, and would act accordingly.
Now, in this supposititious case, I have taken phenomena of a very common kind,
in order that you might see what are the different steps in an ordinary process of
reasoning, if you will only take the trouble to analyze it carefully. All the
operations I have described, you will see, are involved in the mind of any man of
sense in leading him to a conclusion as to the course he should take in order to
make good a robbery and punish the offender. I say that you are led, in that case,
to your conclusion by exactly the same train of reasoning as that which a man of
science pursues when he is endeavouring to discover the origin and laws of the
most occult phenomena. The process is, and always must be, the same; and
precisely the same mode of reasoning was employed by Newton and Laplace in
their endeavours to discover and define the causes of the movements of the
heavenly bodies, as you, with your own common sense, would employ to detect a
burglar. The only difference is, that the nature of the inquiry being more abstruse,
every step has to be most carefully watched, so that there may not be a single
crack or flaw in your hypothesis. A flaw or crack in many of the hypotheses of
daily life may be of little or no moment as affecting the general correctness of the
conclusions at which we may arrive; but in a scientific inquiry a fallacy, great or
small, is always of importance, and is sure to be in the long run constantly
productive of mischievous, if not fatal results.
Do not allow yourselves to be misled by the common notion that an hypothesis is
untrustworthy simply because it is an hypothesis. It is often urged, in respect to
some scientific conclusion, that, after all, it is only an hypothesis. But what more
have we to guide us in nine-tenths of the most important affairs of daily life than
hypotheses, and often very ill-based ones? So that in science, where the evidence
of an hypothesis is subjected to the most rigid examination, we may rightly
pursue the same course. You may have hypotheses and hypotheses. A man may
say, if he likes, that the moon is made of green cheese: that is an hypothesis. But
another man, who has devoted a great deal of time and attention to the subject,

and availed himself of the most powerful telescopes and the results of the
observations of others, declares that in his opinion it is probably composed of
materials very similar to those of which our own earth is made up: and that is also
only an hypothesis. But I need not tell you that there is an enormous difference in
the value of the two hypotheses. That one which is based on sound scientific
knowledge is sure to have a corresponding value; and that which is a mere hasty
random guess is likely to have but little value. Every great step in our progress in
discovering causes has been made in exactly the same way as that which I have
detailed to you. A person observing the occurrence of certain facts and
phenomena asks, naturally enough, what process, what kind of operation known
to occur in nature applied to the particular case, will unravel and explain the
mystery? Hence you have the scientific hypothesis; and its value will be
proportionate to the care and completeness with which its basis had been tested
and verified. It is in these matters as in the commonest affairs of practical life: the
guess of the fool will be folly, while the guess of the wise man will contain
wisdom. In all cases, you see that the value of the result depends on the patience
and faithfulness with which the investigator applies to his hypothesis every
possible kind of verification.
I dare say I may have to return to this point by-and-by; but having dealt thus far
with our logical methods, I must now turn to something which, perhaps, you may
consider more interesting, or, at any rate, more tangible. But in reality there are
but few things that can be more important for you to understand than the mental
processes and the means by which we obtain scientific conclusions and theories.
[51]
Having granted that the inquiry is a proper one, and having determined on the
nature of the methods we are to pursue and which only can lead to success, I must
now turn to the consideration of our knowledge of the nature of the processes
which have resulted in the present condition of organic nature.
Here, let me say at once, lest some of you misunderstand me, that I have
extremely little to report. The question of how the present condition of organic
nature came about, resolves itself into two questions. The first is: How has
organic or living matter commenced its existence? And the second is: How has it
been perpetuated? On the second question I shall have more to say hereafter. But
on the first one, what I now have to say will be for the most part of a negative
character.
If you consider what kind of evidence we can have upon this matter, it will
resolve itself into two kinds. We may have historical evidence and we may have
experimental evidence. It is, for example, conceivable, that inasmuch as the
hardened mud which forms a considerable portion of the thickness of the earth’s

crust contains faithful records of the past forms of life, and inasmuch as these
differ more and more as we go further down,—it is possible and conceivable that
we might come to some particular bed or stratum which should contain the
remains of those creatures with which organic life began upon the earth. And if
we did so, and if such forms of organic life were preservable, we should have
what I would call historical evidence of the mode in which organic life began
upon this planet. Many persons will tell you, and indeed you will find it stated in
many works on geology, that this has been done, and that we really possess such a
record; there are some who imagine that the earliest forms of life of which we
have as yet discovered any record, are in truth the forms in which animal life
began upon the globe. The grounds on which they base that supposition are these:
—That if you go through the enormous thickness of the earth’s crust and get
down to the older rocks, the higher vertebrate animals—the quadrupeds, birds,
and fishes—cease to be found; beneath them you find only the invertebrate
animals; and in the deepest and lowest rocks those remains become scantier and
scantier, not in any very gradual progression, however, until, at length, in what are
supposed to be the oldest rocks, the animal remains which are found are almost
always confined to four forms,—Oldhamia, whose precise nature is not known,
whether plant or animal; Lingula, a kind of mollusc; Trilobites, a crustacean
animal, having the same essential plan of construction, though differing in many
details from a lobster or crab; and Hymenocaris, which is also a crustacean. So
that you have all the Fauna reduced, at this period, to four forms: one a kind of
animal or plant that we know nothing about, and three undoubted animals—two
crustaceans and one mollusc.
I think, considering the organization of these mollusca and crustacea, and looking
at their very complex nature, that it does indeed require a very strong imagination
to conceive that these were the first created of all living things. And you must take
into consideration the fact that we have not the slightest proof that these which we
call the oldest beds are really so: I repeat, we have not the slightest proof of it.
When you find in some places that in an enormous thickness of rocks there are
but very scanty traces of life, or absolutely none at all; and that in other parts of
the world rocks of the very same formation are crowded with the records of living
forms, I think it is impossible to place any reliance on the supposition, or to feel
oneself justified in supposing that these are the forms in which life first
commenced. I have not time here to enter upon the technical grounds upon which
I am led to this conclusion,—that could hardly be done properly in half a dozen
lectures on that part alone;—I must content myself with saying that I do not at all
believe that these are the oldest forms of life.

I turn to the experimental side to see what evidence we have there. To enable us to
say that we know anything about the experimental origination of organization and
life, the investigator ought to be able to take inorganic matters, such as carbonic
acid, ammonia, water, and salines, in any sort of inorganic combination, and be
able to build them up into Protein matter, and then that Protein matter ought to
begin to live in an organic form. That, nobody has done as yet, and I suspect it
will be a long while before anybody does do it. But the thing is by no means so
impossible as it looks; for the researches of modern chemistry have shown us—I
won’t say the road towards it, but, if I may so say, they have shown the finger-
post pointing to the road that may lead to it.
It is not many years ago—and you must recollect that Organic Chemistry is a
young science, not above a couple of generations old, you must not expect too
much of it,—it is not many years ago since it was said to be perfectly impossible
to fabricate any organic compound; that is to say, any non-mineral compound
which is to be found in an organized being. It remained so for a very long period;
but it is now a considerable number of years since a distinguished foreign chemist
contrived to fabricate Urea, a substance of a very complex character, which forms
one of the waste products of animal structures. And of late years a number of
other compounds, such as Butyric Acid, and others, have been added to the list. I
need not tell you that chemistry is an enormous distance from the goal I indicate;
all I wish to point out to you is, that it is by no means safe to say that that goal
may not be reached one day. It may be that it is impossible for us to produce the
conditions requisite to the origination of life; but we must speak modestly about
the matter, and recollect that Science has put her foot upon the bottom round of
the ladder. Truly he would be a bold man who would venture to predict where she
will be fifty years hence.
There is another inquiry which bears indirectly upon this question, and upon
which I must say a few words. You are all of you aware of the phenomena of what
is called spontaneous generation. Our forefathers, down to the seventeenth
century, or thereabouts, all imagined, in perfectly good faith, that certain
vegetable and animal forms gave birth, in the process of their decomposition, to
insect life. Thus, if you put a piece of meat in the sun, and allowed it to putrefy,
they conceived that the grubs which soon began to appear were the result of the
action of a power of spontaneous generation which the meat contained. And they
could give you receipts for making various animal and vegetable preparations
which would produce particular kinds of animals. A very distinguished Italian
naturalist, named Redi, took up the question, at a time when everybody believed
in it; among others our own great Harvey, the discoverer of the circulation of the
blood. You will constantly find his name quoted, however, as an opponent of the

doctrine of spontaneous generation; but the fact is, and you will see it if you take
the trouble to look into his works, Harvey believed it as profoundly as any man of
his time; but he happened to enunciate a very curious proposition—that every
living thing came from an egg; he did not mean to use the word in the sense in
which we now employ it, he only meant to say that every living thing originated
in a little rounded particle of organized substance; and it is from this
circumstance, probably, that the notion of Harvey having opposed the doctrine
originated. Then came Redi, and he proceeded to upset the doctrine in a very
simple manner. He merely covered the piece of meat with some very fine gauze,
and then he exposed it to the same conditions. The result of this was that no grubs
or insects were produced; he proved that the grubs originated from the insects
who came and deposited their eggs in the meat, and that they were hatched by the
heat of the sun. By this kind of inquiry he thoroughly upset the doctrine of
spontaneous generation, for his time at least.
Then came the discovery and application of the microscope to scientific inquiries,
which showed to naturalists that besides the organisms which they already knew
as living beings and plants, there were an immense number of minute things
which could be obtained apparently almost at will from decaying vegetable and
animal forms. Thus, if you took some ordinary black pepper or some hay, and
steeped it in water, you would find in the course of a few days that the water had
become impregnated with an immense number of animalcules swimming about in
all directions. From facts of this kind naturalists were led to revive the theory of
spontaneous generation. They were headed here by an English naturalist,—
Needham,—and afterwards in France by the learned Buffon. They said that these
things were absolutely begotten in the water of the decaying substances out of
which the infusion was made. It did not matter whether you took animal or
vegetable matter, you had only to steep it in water and expose it, and you would
soon have plenty of animalcules. They made an hypothesis about this which was a
very fair one. They said, this matter of the animal world, or of the higher plants,
appears to be dead, but in reality it has a sort of dim life about it, which, if it is
placed under fair conditions, will cause it to break up into the forms of these little
animalcules, and they will go through their lives in the same way as the animal or
plant of which they once formed a part.
The question now became very hotly debated. Spallanzani, an Italian naturalist,
took up opposite views to those of Needham and Buffon, and by means of certain
experiments he showed that it was quite possible to stop the process by boiling
the water, and closing the vessel in which it was contained. “Oh!” said his
opponents, “but what do you know you may be doing when you heat the air over

the water in this way? You may be destroying some property of the air requisite
for the spontaneous generation of the animalcules.”
However, Spallanzani’s views were supposed to be upon the right side, and those
of the others fell into discredit; although the fact was that Spallanzani had not
made good his views. Well, then, the subject continued to be revived from time to
time, and experiments were made by several persons; but these experiments were
not altogether satisfactory. It was found that if you put an infusion in which
animalcules would appear if it were exposed to the air into a vessel and boiled it,
and then sealed up the mouth of the vessel, so that no air, save such as had been
heated to 212°, could reach its contents, that then no animalcules would be found;
but if you took the same vessel and exposed the infusion to the air, then you
would get animalcules. Furthermore, it was found that if you connected the mouth
of the vessel with a red-hot tube in such a way that the air would have to pass
through the tube before reaching the infusion, that then you would get no
animalcules. Yet another thing was noticed: if you took two flasks containing the
same kind of infusion, and left one entirely exposed to the air, and in the mouth of
the other placed a ball of cotton wool, so that the air would have to filter itself
through it before reaching the infusion, that then, although you might have plenty
of animalcules in the first flask, you would certainly obtain none from the second.
These experiments, you see, all tended towards one conclusion—that the infusoria
were developed from little minute spores or eggs which were constantly floating
in the atmosphere, and which lose their power of germination if subjected to heat.
But one observer now made another experiment, which seemed to go entirely the
other way, and puzzled him altogether. He took some of this boiled infusion that I
have been speaking of, and by the use of a mercurial bath—a kind of trough used
in laboratories—he deftly inverted a vessel containing the infusion into the
mercury, so that the latter reached a little beyond the level of the mouth of the
inverted vessel. You see that he thus had a quantity of the infusion shut off from
any possible communication with the outer air by being inverted upon a bed of
mercury.
He then prepared some pure oxygen and nitrogen gases, and passed them by
means of a tube going from the outside of the vessel, up through the mercury into
the infusion; so that he thus had it exposed to a perfectly pure atmosphere of the
same constituents as the external air. Of course, he expected he would get no
infusorial animalcules at all in that infusion; but, to his great dismay and
discomfiture, he found he almost always did get them.

Furthermore, it has been found that experiments made in the manner described
above answer well with most infusions; but that if you fill the vessel with boiled
milk, and then stop the neck with cotton-wool, you will have infusoria. So that
you see there were two experiments that brought you to one kind of conclusion,
and three to another; which was a most unsatisfactory state of things to arrive at
in a scientific inquiry.
Some few years after this, the question began to be very hotly discussed in
France. There was M. Pouchet, a professor at Rouen, a very learned man, but
certainly not a very rigid experimentalist. He published a number of experiments
of his own, some of which were very ingenious, to show that if you went to work
in a proper way, there was a truth in the doctrine of spontaneous generation. Well,
it was one of the most fortunate things in the world that M. Pouchet took up this
question, because it induced a distinguished French chemist, M. Pasteur, to take
up the question on the other side; and he has certainly worked it out in the most
perfect manner. I am glad to say, too, that he has published his researches in time
to enable me to give you an account of them. He verified all the experiments
which I have just mentioned to you—and then finding those extraordinary
anomalies, as in the case of the mercury bath and the milk, he set himself to work
to discover their nature. In the case of milk he found it to be a question of
temperature. Milk in a fresh state is slightly alkaline; and it is a very curious
circumstance, but this very slight degree of alkalinity seems to have the effect of
preserving the organisms which fall into it from the air from being destroyed at a
temperature of 212°, which is the boiling point. But if you raise the temperature
10° when you boil it, the milk behaves like everything else; and if the air with
which it comes in contact, after being boiled at this temperature, is passed through
a red-hot tube, you will not get a trace of organisms.
He then turned his attention to the mercury bath, and found on examination that
the surface of the mercury was almost always covered with a very fine dust. He
found that even the mercury itself was positively full of organic matters; that from
being constantly exposed to the air, it had collected an immense number of these
infusorial organisms from the air. Well, under these circumstances he felt that the
case was quite clear, and that the mercury was not what it had appeared to M.
Schwann to be,—a bar to the admission of these organisms; but that, in reality, it
acted as a reservoir from which the infusion was immediately supplied with the
large quantity that had so puzzled him.
But not content with explaining the experiments of others, M. Pasteur went to
work to satisfy himself completely. He said to himself: “If my view is right, and
if, in point of fact, all these appearances of spontaneous generation are altogether

due to the falling of minute germs suspended in the atmosphere,—why, I ought
not only to be able to show the germs, but I ought to be able to catch and sow
them, and produce the resulting organisms.” He, accordingly, constructed a very
ingenious apparatus to enable him to accomplish the trapping of the “germ dust”
in the air. He fixed in the window of his room a glass tube, in the centre of which
he had placed a ball of gun-cotton, which, as you all know, is ordinary cotton-
wool, which, from having been steeped in strong acid, is converted into a
substance of great explosive power. It is also soluble in alcohol and ether. One
end of the glass tube was, of course, open to the external air; and at the other end
of it he placed an aspirator, a contrivance for causing a current of the external air
to pass through the tube. He kept this apparatus going for four-and-twenty hours,
and then removed the dusted gun-cotton, and dissolved it in alcohol and ether. He
then allowed this to stand for a few hours, and the result was, that a very fine dust
was gradually deposited at the bottom of it. That dust, on being transferred to the
stage of a microscope, was found to contain an enormous number of starch grains.
You know that the materials of our food and the greater portion of plants are
composed of starch, and we are constantly making use of it in a variety of ways,
so that there is always a quantity of it suspended in the air. It is these starch grains
which form many of those bright specks that we see dancing in a ray of light
sometimes. But besides these, M. Pasteur found also an immense number of other
organic substances such as spores of fungi, which had been floating about in the
air and had got caged in this way.
He went farther, and said to himself, “If these really are the things that give rise to
the appearance of spontaneous generation, I ought to be able to take a ball of this
dusted gun-cotton and put it into one of my vessels, containing that boiled
infusion which has been kept away from the air, and in which no infusoria are at
present developed, and then, if I am right, the introduction of this gun-cotton will
give rise to organisms.”
Accordingly, he took one of these vessels of infusion, which had been kept
eighteen months, without the least appearance of life in it, and by a most
ingenious contrivance, he managed to break it open and introduce such a ball of
gun-cotton, without allowing the infusion or the cotton ball to come into contact
with any air but that which had been subjected to a red heat, and in twenty-four
hours he had the satisfaction of finding all the indications of what had been
hitherto called spontaneous generation. He had succeeded in catching the germs
and developing organisms in the way he had anticipated.
It now struck him that the truth of his conclusions might be demonstrated without
all the apparatus he had employed. To do this, he took some decaying animal or

vegetable substance, such as urine, which is an extremely decomposable
substance, or the juice of yeast, or perhaps some other artificial preparation, and
filled a vessel having a long tubular neck, with it. He then boiled the liquid and
bent that long neck into an S shape or zig-zag, leaving it open at the end. The
infusion then gave no trace of any appearance of spontaneous generation,
however long it might be left, as all the germs in the air were deposited in the
beginning of the bent neck. He then cut the tube close to the vessel, and allowed
the ordinary air to have free and direct access; and the result of that was the
appearance of organisms in it, as soon as the infusion had been allowed to stand
long enough to allow of the growth of those it received from the air, which was
about forty-eight hours. The result of M. Pasteur’s experiments proved, therefore,
in the most conclusive manner, that all the appearances of spontaneous generation
arose from nothing more than the deposition of the germs of organisms which
were constantly floating in the air.
To this conclusion, however, the objection was made, that if that were the cause,
then the air would contain such an enormous number of these germs, that it would
be a continual fog. But M. Pasteur replied that they are not there in anything like
the number we might suppose, and that an exaggerated view has been held on that
subject; he showed that the chances of animal or vegetable life appearing in
infusions, depend entirely on the conditions under which they are exposed. If they
are exposed to the ordinary atmosphere around us, why, of course, you may have
organisms appearing early. But, on the other hand, if they are exposed to air at a
great height, or in some very quiet cellar, you will often not find a single trace of
life.
So that M. Pasteur arrived at last at the clear and definite result, that all these
appearances are like the case of the worms in the piece of meat, which was
refuted by Redi, simply germs carried by the air and deposited in the liquids in
which they afterwards appear. For my own part, I conceive that, with the
particulars of M. Pasteur’s experiments before us, we cannot fail to arrive at his
conclusions; and that the doctrine of spontaneous generation has received a final
coup de grâce.
You, of course, understand that all this in no way interferes with the possibility of
the fabrication of organic matters by the direct method to which I have referred,
remote as that possibility may be.

FOOTNOTES:
[51] Those who wish to study fully the doctrines of which I have endeavoured to
give some rough and ready illustrations, must read Mr. John Stuart Mill’s
“System of Logic.”

VII

THE PERPETUATION OF LIVING BEINGS,
HEREDITARY TRANSMISSION AND
VARIATION.
The inquiry which we undertook, at our last meeting, into the state of our
knowledge of the causes of the phenomena of organic nature,—of the past
and of the present,—resolved itself into two subsidiary inquiries: the first
was, whether we know anything, either historically or experimentally, of the
mode of origin of living beings; the second subsidiary inquiry was, whether,
granting the origin, we know anything about the perpetuation and
modifications of the forms of organic beings. The reply which I had to give
to the first question was altogether negative, and the chief result of my last
lecture was, that, neither historically nor experimentally, do we at present
know anything whatsoever about the origin of living forms. We saw that,
historically, we are not likely to know anything about it, although we may
perhaps learn something experimentally; but that at present we are an
enormous distance from the goal I indicated.
I now, then, take up the next question, What do we know of the
reproduction, the perpetuation, and the modifications of the forms of living
beings, supposing that we have put the question as to their origination on
one side, and have assumed that at present the causes of their origination
are beyond us, and that we know nothing about them? Upon this question
the state of our knowledge is extremely different; it is exceedingly large:
and, if not complete, our experience is certainly most extensive. It would be
impossible to lay it all before you, and the most I can do, or need do to-
night, is to take up the principal points and put them before you with such
prominence as may subserve the purposes of our present argument.
The method of the perpetuation of organic beings is of two kinds,—the
asexual and the sexual. In the first the perpetuation takes place from and by

a particular act of an individual organism, which sometimes may not be
classed as belonging to any sex at all. In the second case, it is in
consequence of the mutual action and inter-action of certain portions of the
organisms of usually two distinct individuals—the male and the female.
The cases of asexual perpetuation are by no means so common as the cases
of sexual perpetuation; and they are by no means so common in the animal
as in the vegetable world. You are all probably familiar with the fact, as a
matter of experience, that you can propagate plants by means of what are
called “cuttings”; for example, that by taking a cutting from a geranium
plant, and rearing it properly, by supplying it with light and warmth and
nourishment from the earth, it grows up and takes the form of its parent,
having all the properties and peculiarities of the original plant.
Sometimes this process, which the gardener performs artificially, takes
place naturally; that is to say, a little bulb, or portion of the plant, detaches
itself, drops off, and becomes capable of growing as a separate thing. That
is the case with many bulbous plants, which throw off in this way secondary
bulbs, which are lodged in the ground and become developed into plants.
This is an asexual process, and from it results the repetition or reproduction
of the form of the original being from which the bulb proceeds.
Among animals the same thing takes place. Among the lower forms of
animal life, the infusorial animalculæ we have already spoken of throw off
certain portions, or break themselves up in various directions, sometimes
transversely or sometimes longitudinally; or they may give off buds, which
detach themselves and develop into their proper forms. There is the
common fresh-water Polype, for instance, which multiplies itself in this
way. Just in the same way as the gardener is able to multiply and reproduce
the peculiarities and characters of particular plants by means of cuttings, so
can the physiological experimentalist,—as was shown by the Abbé
Trembley many years ago,—so can he do the same thing with many of the
lower forms of animal life. M. de Trembley showed that you could take a
polype and cut it into two, or four, or many pieces, mutilating it in all
directions, and the pieces would still grow up and reproduce completely the
original form of the animal. These are all cases of asexual multiplication,
and there are other instances, and still more extraordinary ones, in which
this process takes place naturally, in a more hidden, a more recondite kind
of way. You are all of you familiar with that little green insect, the Aphis or

blight, as it is called. These little animals, during a very considerable part of
their existence, multiply themselves by means of a kind of internal budding,
the buds being developed into essentially asexual animals, which are neither
male nor female; they become converted into young Aphides, which repeat
the process, and their offspring after them, and so on again; you may go on
for nine or ten, or even twenty or more successions; and there is no very
good reason to say how soon it might terminate, or how long it might not go
on if the proper conditions of warmth and nourishment were kept up.
Sexual reproduction is quite a distinct matter. Here, in all these cases, what
is required is the detachment of two portions of the parental organisms,
which portions we know as the egg or the spermatozoon. In plants it is the
ovule and the pollen-grain, as in the flowering plants, or the ovule and the
antherozooid, as in the flowerless. Among all forms of animal life, the
spermatozoa proceed from the male sex, and the egg is the product of the
female. Now, what is remarkable about this mode of reproduction is this,
that the egg by itself, or the spermatozoa by themselves, are unable to
assume the parental form; but if they be brought into contact with one
another, the effect of the mixture of organic substances proceeding from
two sources appears to confer an altogether new vigour to the mixed
product. This process is brought about, as we all know, by the sexual
intercourse of the two sexes, and is called the act of impregnation. The
result of this act on the part of the male and female is, that the formation of
a new being is set up in the ovule or egg; this ovule or egg soon begins to
be divided and subdivided, and to be fashioned into various complex
organisms, and eventually to develop into the form of one of its parents, as I
explained in the first lecture. These are the processes by which the
perpetuation of organic beings is secured. Why there should be the two
modes—why this reinvigoration should be required on the part of the
female element we do not know; but it is most assuredly the fact, and it is
presumable, that, however long the process of asexual multiplication could
be continued,—I say there is good reason to believe that it would come to
an end if a new commencement were not obtained by a conjunction of the
two sexual elements.
That character which is common to these two distinct processes is this, that,
whether we consider the reproduction, or perpetuation, or modification of
organic beings as they take place asexually, or as they may take place

sexually,—in either case, I say, the offspring has a constant tendency to
assume, speaking generally, the character of the parent. As I said just now,
if you take a slip of a plant, and tend it with care, it will eventually grow up
and develop into a plant like that from which it had sprung; and this
tendency is so strong that, as gardeners know, this mode of multiplying by
means of cuttings is the only secure mode of propagating very many
varieties of plants; the peculiarity of the primitive stock seems to be better
preserved if you propagate it by means of a slip than if you resort to the
sexual mode.
Again, in experiments upon the lower animals, such as the polype, to which
I have referred, it is most extraordinary that, although cut up into various
pieces, each particular piece will grow up into the form of the primitive
stock; the head, if separated, will reproduce the body and the tail; and if you
cut off the tail, you will find that that will reproduce the body and all the
rest of the members, without in any way deviating from the plan of the
organism from which these portions have been detached. And so far does
this go, that some experimentalists have carefully examined the lower
orders of animals,—among them the Abbé Spallanzani, who made a
number of experiments upon snails and salamanders,—and have found that
they might mutilate them to an incredible extent; that you might cut off the
jaw or the greater part of the head, or the leg or the tail, and repeat the
experiment several times, perhaps, cutting off the same member again and
again; and yet each of those types would be reproduced according to the
primitive type: nature making no mistake, never putting on a fresh kind of
leg, or head, or tail, but always tending to repeat and to return to the
primitive type.
It is the same in sexual reproduction: it is a matter of perfectly common
experience, that the tendency on the part of the offspring always is,
speaking broadly, to reproduce the form of the parents. The proverb has it
that the thistle does not bring forth grapes; so, among ourselves, there is
always a likeness, more or less marked and distinct, between children and
their parents. That is a matter of familiar and ordinary observation. We
notice the same thing occurring in the cases of the domestic animals—dogs,
for instance, and their offspring. In all these cases of propagation and
perpetuation, there seems to be a tendency in the offspring to take the
characters of the parental organisms. To that tendency a special name is

given—and as I may very often use it, I will write it up here on this
blackboard that you may remember it—it is called Atavism; it expresses this
tendency to revert to the ancestral type, and comes from the Latin word
atavus, ancestor.
Well, this Atavismwhich I shall speak of, is, as I said before, one of the most
marked and striking tendencies of organic beings; but, side by side with this
hereditary tendency there is an equally distinct and remarkable tendency to
variation. The tendency to reproduce the original stock has, as it were, its
limits, and side by side with it there is a tendency to vary in certain
directions, as if there were two opposing powers working upon the organic
being, one tending to take it in a straight line, and the other tending to make
it diverge from that straight line, first to one side and then to the other.
So that you see these two tendencies need not precisely contradict one
another, as the ultimate result may not always be very remote from what
would have been the case if the line had been quite straight.
This tendency to variation is less marked in that mode of propagation which
takes place asexually; it is in that mode that the minor characters of animal
and vegetable structures are most completely preserved. Still, it will happen
sometimes, that the gardener, when he has planted a cutting of some
favourite plant, will find, contrary to his expectation, that the slip grows up
a little different from the primitive stock—that it produces flowers of a
different colour or make, or some deviation in one way or another. This is
what is called the “sporting” of plants.
In animals the phenomena of asexual propagation are so obscure, that at
present we cannot be said to know much about them; but if we turn to that
mode of perpetuation which results from the sexual process, then we find
variation a perfectly constant occurrence, to a certain extent; and, indeed, I
think that a certain amount of variation from the primitive stock is the
necessary result of the method of sexual propagation itself; for, inasmuch as
the thing propagated proceeds from two organisms of different sexes and
different makes and temperaments, and as the offspring is to be either of
one sex or the other, it is quite clear that it cannot be an exact diagonal of
the two, or it would be of no sex at all; it cannot be an exact intermediate
form between that of each of its parents—it must deviate to one side or the

other. You do not find that the male follows the precise type of the male
parent, nor does the female always inherit the precise characteristics of the
mother,—there is always a proportion of the female character in the male
offspring, and of the male character in the female offspring. That must be
quite plain to all of you who have looked at all attentively on your own
children or those of your neighbours; you will have noticed how very often
it may happen that the son shall exhibit the maternal type of character, or
the daughter possess the characteristics of the father’s family. There are all
sorts of intermixtures and intermediate conditions between the two, where
complexion, or beauty, or fifty other different peculiarities belonging to
either side of the house, are reproduced in other members of the same
family. Indeed, it is sometimes to be remarked in this kind of variation, that
the variety belongs, strictly speaking, to neither of the immediate parents;
you will see a child in a family who is not like either its father or its mother;
but some old person who knew its grandfather or grandmother, or, it may
be, an uncle, or, perhaps, even a more distant relative, will see a great
similarity between the child and one of these. In this way it constantly
happens that the characteristic of some previous member of the family
comes out and is reproduced and recognized in the most unexpected
manner.
But apart from that matter of general experience, there are some cases
which put that curious mixture in a very clear light. You are aware that the
offspring of the Ass and the Horse, or rather of the he-Ass and the Mare, is
what is called a Mule; and, on the other hand, the offspring of the Stallion
and the she-Ass is what is called a Hinny. It is a very rare thing in this
country to see a Hinny. I never saw one myself; but they have been very
carefully studied. Now, the curious thing is this, that although you have the
same elements in the experiment in each case, the offspring is entirely
different in character, according as the male influence comes from the Ass
or the Horse. Where the Ass is the male, as in the case of the Mule, you find
that the head is like that of the Ass, that the ears are long, the tail is tufted at
the end, the feet are small, and the voice is an unmistakable bray; these are
all points of similarity to the Ass; but, on the other hand, the barrel of the
body and the cut of the neck are much more like those of the Mare. Then, if
you look at the Hinny,—the result of the union of the Stallion and the she-
Ass, then you find it is the Horse that has the predominance; that the head is

more like that of the Horse, the ears are shorter, the legs coarser, and the
type is altogether altered; while the voice, instead of being a bray, is the
ordinary neigh of the Horse. Here, you see, is a most curious thing: you take
exactly the same elements, Ass and Horse, but you combine the sexes in a
different manner, and the result is modified accordingly. You have in this
case, however, a result which is not general and universal—there is usually
an important preponderance, but not always on the same side.
Here, then, is one intelligible, and, perhaps, necessary cause of variation:
the fact, that there are two sexes sharing in the production of the offspring,
and that the share taken by each is different and variable, not only for each
combination, but also for different members of the same family.
Secondly, there is a variation, to a certain extent,—though in all probability
the influence of this cause has been very much exaggerated—but there is no
doubt that variation is produced, to a certain extent, by what are commonly
known as external conditions,—such as temperature, food, warmth, and
moisture. In the long run, every variation depends, in some sense, upon
external conditions, seeing that everything has a cause of its own. I use the
term “external conditions” now in the sense in which it is ordinarily
employed: certain it is, that external conditions have a definite effect. You
may take a plant which has single flowers, and by dealing with the soil, and
nourishment, and so on, you may by-and-by convert single flowers into
double flowers, and make thorns shoot out into branches. You may thicken
or make various modifications in the shape of the fruit. In animals, too, you
may produce analogous changes in this way, as in the case of that deep
bronze colour which persons rarely lose after having passed any length of
time in tropical countries. You may also alter the development of the
muscles very much, by dint of training; all the world knows that exercise
has a great effect in this way; we always expect to find the arm of a
blacksmith hard and wiry, and possessing a large development of the
brachial muscles. No doubt, training, which is one of the forms of external
conditions, converts what are originally only instructions, teachings, into
habits, or, in other words, into organizations, to a great extent; but this
second cause of variation cannot be considered to be by any means a large
one. The third cause that I have to mention, however, is a very extensive
one. It is one that, for want of a better name, has been called “spontaneous
variation”; which means that when we do not know anything about the

cause of phenomena, we call it spontaneous. In the orderly chain of causes
and effects in this world, there are very few things of which it can be said
with truth that they are spontaneous. Certainly not in these physical matters,
—in these there is nothing of the kind,—everything depends on previous
conditions. But when we cannot trace the cause of phenomena, we call
them spontaneous.
Of these variations, multitudinous as they are, but little is known with
perfect accuracy, I will mention to you some two or three cases, because
they are very remarkable in themselves, and also because I shall want to use
them afterwards. Réaumur, a famous French naturalist, a great many years
ago, in an essay which he wrote upon the art of hatching chickens,—which
was indeed a very curious essay,—had occasion to speak of variations and
monstrosities. One very remarkable case had come under his notice of a
variation in the form of a human member, in the person of a Maltese, of the
name of Gratio Kelleia, who was born with six fingers upon each hand, and
the like number of toes to each of his feet. That was a case of spontaneous
variation. Nobody knows why he was born with that number of fingers and
toes, and as we don’t know, we call it a case of “spontaneous” variation.
There is another remarkable case also. I select these, because they happen
to have been observed and noted very carefully at the time. It frequently
happens that a variation occurs, but the persons who notice it do not take
any care in noting down the particulars, until at length, when inquiries come
to be made, the exact circumstances are forgotten; and hence, multitudinous
as may be such “spontaneous” variations, it is exceedingly difficult to get at
the origin of them.
The second case is one of which you may find the whole details in the
“Philosophical Transactions” for the year 1813, in a paper communicated
by Colonel Humphreys to the President of the Royal Society,—“On a new
Variety in the Breed of Sheep,” giving an account of a very remarkable
breed of sheep, which at one time was well known in the northern states of
America, and which went by the name of the Ancon or the Otter breed of
sheep. In the year 1791, there was a farmer of the name of Seth Wright in
Massachusetts, who had a flock of sheep, consisting of a ram and, I think,
of some twelve or thirteen ewes. Of this flock of ewes, one at the breeding-
time bore a lamb which was very singularly formed; it had a very long
body, very short legs, and those legs were bowed! I will tell you by-and-by

how this singular variation in the breed of sheep came to be noted, and to
have the prominence that it now has. For the present, I mention only these
two cases; but the extent of variation in the breed of animals is perfectly
obvious to any one who has studied natural history with ordinary attention,
or to any person who compares animals with others of the same kind. It is
strictly true that there are never any two specimens which are exactly alike;
however similar, they will always differ in some certain particular.
Now let us go back to Atavism,—to the hereditary tendency I spoke of.
What will come of a variation when you breed from it, when Atavism
comes, if I may say so, to intersect variation? The two cases of which I have
mentioned the history, give a most excellent illustration of what occurs.
Gratio Kelleia, the Maltese, married when he was twenty-two years of age,
and, as I suppose there were no six-fingered ladies in Malta, he married an
ordinary five-fingered person. The result of that marriage was four children;
the first, who was christened Salvator, had six fingers and six toes, like his
father; the second was George, who had five fingers and toes, but one of
them was deformed, showing a tendency to variation; the third was Andrè;
he had five fingers and five toes, quite perfect; the fourth was a girl, Marie;
she had five fingers and five toes, but her thumbs were deformed, showing
a tendency toward the sixth.
These children grew up, and when they came to adult years, they all
married, and of course it happened that they all married five-fingered and
five-toed persons. Now let us see what were the results. Salvator had four
children; they were two boys, a girl, and another boy: the first two boys and
the girl were six-fingered and six-toed like their grandfather; the fourth boy
had only five fingers and five toes. George had only four children: there
were two girls with six fingers and six toes; there was one girl with six
fingers and five toes on the right side, and five fingers and five toes on the
left side, so that she was half and half. The last, a boy, had five fingers and
five toes. The third, Andrè, you will recollect, was perfectly well-formed,
and he had many children whose hands and feet were all regularly
developed. Marie, the last, who, of course, married a man who had only
five fingers, had four children: the first, a boy, was born with six toes, but
the other three were normal.

Now observe what very extraordinary phenomena are presented here. You
have an accidental variation arising from what you may call a monstrosity;
you have that monstrosity tendency or variation diluted in the first instance
by an admixture with a female of normal construction, and you would
naturally expect that, in the results of such an union, the monstrosity, if
repeated, would be in equal proportion with the normal type; that is to say,
that the children would be half and half, some taking the peculiarity of the
father, and the others being of the purely normal type of the mother; but you
see we have a great preponderance of the abnormal type. Well, this comes
to be mixed once more with the pure, the normal type, and the abnormal is
again produced in large proportion, notwithstanding the second dilution.
Now what would have happened if these abnormal types had intermarried
with each other; that is to say, suppose the two boys of Salvator had taken it
into their heads to marry their first cousins, the two first girls of George,
their uncle? You will remember that these are all of the abnormal type of
their grandfather. The result would probably have been, that their offspring
would have been in every case a further development of that abnormal type.
You see it is only in the fourth, in the person of Marie, that the tendency,
when it appears but slightly in the second generation, is washed out in the
third, while the progeny of Andrè, who escaped in the first instance, escape
altogether.
We have in this case a good example of nature’s tendency to the
perpetuation of a variation. Here it is certainly a variation which carried
with it no use or benefit; and yet you see the tendency to perpetuation may
be so strong, that, notwithstanding a great admixture of pure blood, the
variety continues itself up to the third generation, which is largely marked
with it. In this case, as I have said, there was no means of the second
generation intermarrying with any but five-fingered persons, and the
question naturally suggests itself, What would have been the result of such
marriage? Réaumur narrates this case only as far as the third generation.
Certainly it would have been an exceedingly curious thing if we could have
traced this matter any further; had the cousins intermarried, a six-fingered
variety of the human race might have been set up.
To show you that this supposition is by no means an unreasonable one, let
me now point out what took place in the case of Seth Wright’s sheep, where
it happened to be a matter of moment to him to obtain a breed or raise a

flock of sheep like that accidental variety that I have described—and I will
tell you why. In that part of Massachusetts where Seth Wright was living,
the fields were separated by fences, and the sheep, which were very active
and robust, would roam abroad, and without much difficulty jump over
these fences into other people’s farms. As a matter of course, this exuberant
activity on the part of the sheep constantly gave rise to all sorts of quarrels,
bickerings, and contentions among the farmers of the neighbourhood; so it
occurred to Seth Wright, who was, like his successors, more or less ’cute,
that if he could get a stock of sheep like those with the bandy legs, they
would not be able to jump over the fences so readily; and he acted upon that
idea. He killed his old ram, and as soon as the young one arrived at
maturity, he bred altogether from it. The result was even more striking than
in the human experiment which I mentioned just now. Colonel Humphreys
testifies that it always happened that the offspring were either pure Ancons
or pure ordinary sheep; that in no case was there any mixing of the Ancons
with the others. In consequence of this, in the course of a very few years,
the farmer was able to get a very considerable flock of this variety, and a
large number of them were spread throughout Massachusetts. Most
unfortunately, however—I suppose it was because they were so common—
nobody took enough notice of them to preserve their skeletons; and
although Colonel Humphreys states that he sent a skeleton to the President
of the Royal Society at the same time that he forwarded his paper, I am
afraid that the variety has entirely disappeared; for a short time after these
sheep had become prevalent in that district, the Merino sheep were
introduced; and as their wool was much more valuable, and as they were a
quiet race of sheep, and showed no tendency to trespass or jump over
fences, the Otter breed of sheep, the wool of which was inferior to that of
the Merino, was gradually allowed to die out.
You see that these facts illustrate perfectly well what may be done if you
take care to breed from stocks that are similar to each other. After having
got a variation, if, by crossing a variation with the original stock, you
multiply that variation, and then take care to keep that variation distinct
from the original stock, and make them breed together,—then you may
almost certainly produce a race whose tendency to continue the variation is
exceedingly strong.

This is what is called “selection”; and it is by exactly the same process as
that by which Seth Wright bred his Ancon sheep, that our breeds of cattle,
dogs, and fowls, are obtained. There are some possibilities of exception, but
still, speaking broadly, I may say that this is the way in which all our varied
races of domestic animals have arisen; and you must understand that it is
not one peculiarity or one characteristic alone in which animals may vary.
There is not a single peculiarity or characteristic of any kind, bodily or
mental, in which offspring may not vary to a certain extent from the parent
and other animals.
Among ourselves this is well known. The simplest physical peculiarity is
mostly reproduced. I know a case of a woman who has the lobe of one of
her ears a little flattened. An ordinary observer might scarcely notice it, and
yet every one of her children has an approximation to the same peculiarity
to some extent. If you look at the other extreme, too, the gravest diseases,
such as gout, scrofula, and consumption, may be handed down with just the
same certainty and persistence as we noticed in the perpetuation of the
bandy legs of the Ancon sheep.
However, these facts are best illustrated in animals, and the extent of the
variation, as is well known, is very remarkable in dogs. For example, there
are some dogs very much smaller than others; indeed, the variation is so
enormous that probably the smallest dog would be about the size of the
head of the largest; there are very great variations in the structural forms not
only of the skeleton but also in the shape of the skull, and in the proportions
of the face and the disposition of the teeth.
The Pointer, the Retriever, Bulldog, and the Terrier, differ very greatly, and
yet there is every reason to believe that every one of these races has arisen
from the same source,—that all the most important races have arisen by this
selective breeding from accidental variation.
A still more striking case of what may be done by selective breeding, and it
is a better case, because there is no chance of that partial infusion of error to
which I alluded, has been studied very carefully by Mr. Darwin,—the case
of the domestic pigeons. I dare say there may be some among you who may
be pigeon fanciers, and I wish you to understand that in approaching the
subject, I would speak with all humility and hesitation, as I regret to say

that I am not a pigeon fancier. I know it is a great art and mystery, and a
thing upon which a man must not speak lightly; but I shall endeavour, as far
as my understanding goes, to give you a summary of the published and
unpublished information which I have gained from Mr. Darwin.
Among the enormous variety,—I believe there are somewhere about a
hundred and fifty kinds of pigeons,—there are four kinds which may be
selected as representing the extremest divergences of one kind from
another. Their names are the Carrier, the Pouter, the Fantail, and the
Tumbler. In these large diagrams that I have here they are each represented
in their relative sizes to each other. This first one is the Carrier; you will
notice this large excrescence on its beak; it has a comparatively small head;
there is a bare space round the eyes; it has a long neck, a very long beak,
very strong legs, large feet, long wings, and so on. The second one is the
Pouter, a very large bird, with very long legs and beak. It is called the
Pouter because it is in the habit of causing its gullet to swell up by inflating
it with air. I should tell you that all pigeons have a tendency to do this at
times, but in the Pouter it is carried to an enormous extent. The birds appear
to be quite proud of their power of swelling and puffing themselves out in
this way; and I think it is about as droll a sight as you can well see to look at
a cage full of these pigeons puffing and blowing themselves out in this
ridiculous manner.
This diagram is a representation of the third kind I mentioned—the Fantail.
It is, you see, a small bird, with exceedingly small legs and a very small
beak. It is most curiously distinguished by the size and extent of its tail,
which, instead of containing twelve feathers, may have many more,—say
thirty, or even more—I believe there are some with as many as forty-two.
This bird has a curious habit of spreading out the feathers of its tail in such
a way that they reach forward, and touch its head; and if this can be
accomplished, I believe it is looked upon as a point of great beauty.
But here is the last great variety,—the Tumbler; and of that great variety,
one of the principal kinds, and one most prized, is the specimen represented
here—the short-faced Tumbler. Its beak, you see, is reduced to a mere
nothing. Just compare the beak of this one and that of the first one, the
Carrier—I believe the orthodox comparison of the head and beak of a
thoroughly well-bred Tumbler is to stick an oat into a cherry, and that will

give you the proper relative proportions of the beak and head. The feet and
legs are exceedingly small, and the bird appears to be quite a dwarf when
placed side by side with this great Carrier.
These are differences enough in regard to their external appearance; but
these differences are by no means the whole or even the most important of
the differences which obtain between these birds. There is hardly a single
point of their structure which has not become more or less altered; and to
give you an idea of how extensive these alterations are, I have here some
very good skeletons, for which I am indebted to my friend Mr. Tegetmeier,
a great authority in these matters; by means of which, if you examine them
by-and-by, you will be able to see the enormous difference in their bony
structures.
I had the privilege, some time ago, of access to some important MSS. of
Mr. Darwin, who, I may tell you, has taken very great pains and spent much
valuable time and attention on the investigation of these variations, and
getting together all the facts that bear upon them. I obtained from these
MSS. the following summary of the differences between the domestic
breeds of pigeons; that is to say, a notification of the various points in which
their organization differs. In the first place, the back of the skull may differ
a good deal, and the development of the bones of the face may vary a great
deal; the back varies a good deal; the shape of the lower jaw varies; the
tongue varies very greatly, not only in correlation to the length and size of
the beak, but it seems also to have a kind of independent variation of its
own. Then the amount of naked skin round the eyes, and at the base of the
beak, may vary enormously; so may the length of the eyelids, the shape of
the nostrils, and the length of the neck. I have already noticed the habit of
blowing out the gullet, so remarkable in the Pouter, and comparatively so in
the others. There are great differences, too, in the size of the female and the
male, the shape of the body, the number and width of the processes of the
ribs, the development of the ribs, and the size, shape, and development of
the breastbone. We may notice, too,—and I mention the fact because it has
been disputed by what is assumed to be high authority,—the variation in the
number of the sacral vertebræ. The number of these varies from eleven to
fourteen, and that without any diminution in the number of the vertebræ of
the back or of the tail. Then the number and position of the tail-feathers
may vary enormously, and so may the number of the primary and secondary

feathers of the wings. Again, the length of the feet and of the beak,—
although they have no relation to each other, yet appear to go together,—
that is, you have a long beak wherever you have long feet. There are
differences also in the periods of the acquirement of the perfect plumage,—
the size and shape of the eggs,—the nature of flight, and the powers of
flight,—so-called “homing” birds having enormous flying powers;[52]
while, on the other hand, the little Tumbler is so called because of its
extraordinary faculty of turning head over heels in the air, instead of
pursuing a distinct course. And, lastly, the dispositions and voices of the
birds may vary. Thus the case of the pigeons shows you that there is hardly
a single particular,—whether of instinct, or habit, or bony structure, or of
plumage,—of either the internal economy or the external shape, in which
some variation or change may not take place, which, by selective breeding,
may become perpetuated, and form the foundation of, and give rise to, a
new race.
If you carry in your mind’s eye these four varieties of pigeons, you will bear
with you as good a notion as you can have, perhaps, of the enormous extent
to which a deviation from a primitive type may be carried by means of this
process of selective breeding.

FOOTNOTES:

[52] The “Carrier,” I learn from Mr. Tegetmeier, does not carry; a high-bred
bird of this breed being but a poor flier. The birds which fly long distances, and
come home,—“homing” birds,—and are consequently used as carriers, are not
“carriers” in the fancy sense.

VIII

THE CONDITIONS OF EXISTENCE AS
AFFECTING THE PERPETUATION OF
LIVING BEINGS.
In the last Lecture I endeavoured to prove to you that, while, as a general
rule, organic beings tend to reproduce their kind, there is in them, also, a
constantly recurring tendency to vary—to vary to a greater or to a less
extent. Such a variety, I pointed out to you, might arise from causes which
we do not understand; we therefore called it spontaneous; and it might
come into existence as a definite and marked thing, without any gradations
between itself and the form which preceded it. I further pointed out, that
such a variety having once arisen, might be perpetuated to some extent, and
indeed to a very marked extent, without any direct interference, or without
any exercise of that process which we called selection. And then I stated
further, that by such selection, when exercised artificially—if you took care
to breed only from those forms which presented the same peculiarities of
any variety which had arisen in this manner—the variation might be
perpetuated, as far as we can see, indefinitely.
The next question, and it is an important one for us, is this: Is there any
limit to the amount of variation from the primitive stock which can be
produced by this process of selective breeding? In considering this question,
it will be useful to class the characteristics, in respect of which organic
beings vary, under two heads: we may consider structural characteristics,
and we may consider physiological characteristics.
In the first place, as regards structural characteristics, I endeavoured to
show you, by the skeletons which I had upon the table, and by reference to
a great many well-ascertained facts, that the different breeds of Pigeons, the
Carriers, Pouters, and Tumblers, might vary in any of their internal and
important structural characters to a very great degree; not only might there

be changes in the proportions of the skull, and the characters of the feet and
beaks, and so on; but that there might be an absolute difference in the
number of the vertebræ of the back, as in the sacral vertebræ of the Pouter;
and so great is the extent of the variation in these and similar characters that
I pointed out to you, by reference to the skeletons and the diagrams, that
these extreme varieties may absolutely differ more from one another in their
structural characters than do what naturalists call distinct Species of
pigeons; that is to say, that they differ so much in structure that there is a
greater difference between the Pouter and the Tumbler than there is between
such wild and distinct forms as the Rock Pigeon or the Ring Pigeon, or the
Ring Pigeon and the Stock Dove; and indeed the differences are of greater
value than this, for the structural differences between these domesticated
pigeons are such as would be admitted by a naturalist, supposing he knew
nothing at all about their origin, to entitle them to constitute even distinct
genera.
As I have used this term Species, and shall probably use it a good deal, I had
better perhaps devote a word or two to explaining what I mean by it.
Animals and plants are divided into groups, which become gradually
smaller, beginning with a Kingdom, which is divided into Sub-Kingdoms;
then come the smaller divisions called Provinces; and so on from a
Province to a Class, from a Class to an Order, from Orders to Families,
and from these to Genera, until we come at length to the smallest groups of
animals which can be defined one from the other by constant characters,
which are not sexual; and these are what naturalists call Species in practice,
whatever they may do in theory.
If in a state of nature you find any two groups of living beings, which are
separated one from the other by some constantly-recurring characteristic, I
don’t care how slight and trivial, so long as it is defined and constant, and
does not depend on sexual peculiarities, then all naturalists agree in calling
them two species; that is what is meant by the use of the word species—that
is to say, it is, for the practical naturalist, a mere question of structural
differences.[53]
We have seen now—to repeat this point once more, and it is very essential
that we should rightly understand it—we have seen that breeds, known to

have been derived from a common stock by selection, may be as different in
their structure from the original stock as species may be distinct from each
other.
But is the like true of the physiological characteristics of animals? Do the
physiological differences of varieties amount in degree to those observed
between forms which naturalists call distinct species? This is a most
important point for us to consider.
As regards the great majority of physiological characteristics, there is no
doubt that they are capable of being developed, increased, and modified by
selection.
There is no doubt that breeds may be made as different as species in many
physiological characters. I have already pointed out to you very briefly the
different habits of the breeds of Pigeons, all of which depend upon their
physiological peculiarities,—as the peculiar habit of tumbling, in the
Tumbler,—the peculiarities of flight, in the “homing” birds,—the strange
habit of spreading out the tail, and walking in a peculiar fashion, in the
Fantail,—and, lastly, the habit of blowing out the gullet, so characteristic of
the Pouter. These are all due to physiological modifications, and in all these
respects these birds differ as much from each other as any two ordinary
species do.
So with Dogs in their habits and instincts. It is a physiological peculiarity
which leads the Greyhound to chase its prey by sight,—that enables the
Beagle to track it by the scent,—that impels the Terrier to its rat-hunting
propensity,—and that leads the Retriever to its habits of retrieving. These
habits and instincts are all the results of physiological differences and
peculiarities, which have been developed from a common stock, at least
there is every reason to believe so. But it is a most singular circumstance,
that while you may run through almost the whole series of physiological
processes, without finding a check to your argument, you come at last to a
point where you do find a check, and that is in the reproductive processes.
For there is a most singular circumstance in respect to natural species—at
least about some of them—and it would be sufficient for the purposes of
this argument, if it were true of only one of them, but there is, in fact, a
great number of such cases—and that is, that similar as they may appear to

be to mere races or breeds, they present a marked peculiarity in the
reproductive process. If you breed from the male and female of the same
race, you of course have offspring of the like kind, and if you make the
offspring breed together, you obtain the same result, and if you breed from
these again, you will still have the same kind of offspring; there is no check.
But if you take members of two distinct species, however similar they may
be to each other, and make them breed together, you will find a check, with
some modifications and exceptions, however, which I shall speak of
presently. If you cross two such species with each other, then,—although
you may get offspring in the case of the first cross, yet, if you attempt to
breed from the products of that crossing, which are what are called Hybrids
—that is, if you couple a male and a female hybrid—then the result is that
in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred you will get no offspring at all: there
will be no result whatsoever.
The reason of this is quite obvious in some cases; the male hybrids,
although possessing all the external appearances and characteristics of
perfect animals, are physiologically imperfect and deficient in the structural
parts of the reproductive elements necessary to generation. It is said to be
invariably the case with the male mule, the cross between the Ass and the
Mare; and hence it is, that, although crossing the Horse with the Ass is easy
enough, and is constantly done, as far as I am aware, if you take two mules,
a male and a female, and endeavour to breed from them, you get no
offspring whatever; no generation will take place. This is what is called the
sterility of the hybrids between two distinct species.
You see that this is a very extraordinary circumstance; one does not see why
it should be. The common teleological explanation is, that it is to prevent
the impurity of the blood resulting from the crossing of one species with
another, but you see it does not in reality do anything of the kind. There is
nothing in this fact that hybrids cannot breed with each other, to establish
such a theory; there is nothing to prevent the Horse breeding with the Ass,
or the Ass with the Horse. So that this explanation breaks down, as a great
many explanations of this kind do, that are only founded on mere
assumptions.
Thus you see that there is a great difference between “mongrels,” which are
crosses between distinct races, and “hybrids,” which are crosses between

distinct species. The mongrels are, so far as we know, fertile with one
another. But between species, in many cases, you cannot succeed in
obtaining even the first cross: at any rate it is quite certain that the hybrids
are often absolutely infertile one with another.
Here is a feature, then, great or small as it may be, which distinguishes
natural species of animals. Can we find any approximation to this in the
different races known to be produced by selective breeding from a common
stock? Up to the present time the answer to that question is absolutely a
negative one. As far as we know at present, there is nothing approximating
to this check. In crossing the breeds between the Fantail and the Pouter, the
Carrier and the Tumbler, or any other variety or race you may name—so far
as we know at present—there is no difficulty in breeding together the
mongrels. Take the Carrier and the Fantail, for instance, and let them
represent the Horse and the Ass in the case of distinct species; then you
have, as the result of their breeding, the Carrier-Fantail mongrel,—we will
say the male and female mongrel,—and, as far as we know, these two when
crossed would not be less fertile than the original cross, or than Carrier with
Carrier. Here, you see, is a physiological contrast between the races
produced by selective modification and natural species. I shall inquire into
the value of this fact, and of some modifying circumstances by and by; for
the present I merely put it broadly before you.
But while considering this question of the limitations of species, a word
must be said about what is called Recurrence—the tendency of races which
have been developed by selective breeding from varieties to return to their
primitive type. This is supposed by many to put an absolute limit to the
extent of selective and all other variations. People say, “It is all very well to
talk about producing these different races, but you know very well that if
you turned all these birds wild, these Pouters, and Carriers, and so on, they
would all return to their primitive stock.” This is very commonly assumed
to be a fact, and it is an argument that is commonly brought forward as
conclusive; but if you will take the trouble to inquire into it rather closely, I
think you will find that it is not worth very much. The first question of
course is, Do they thus return to the primitive stock? And commonly as the
thing is assumed and accepted, it is extremely difficult to get anything like
good evidence of it. It is constantly said, for example, that if domesticated
Horses are turned wild, as they have been in some parts of Asia Minor and

South America, that they return at once to the primitive stock from which
they were bred. But the first answer that you make to this assumption is, to
ask who knows what the primitive stock was; and the second answer is, that
in that case the wild Horses of Asia Minor ought to be exactly like the wild
Horses of South America. If they are both like the same thing, they ought
manifestly to be like each other! The best authorities, however, tell you that
it is quite different. The wild Horse of Asia is said to be of a dun colour,
with a largish head, and a great many other peculiarities; while the best
authorities on the wild Horses of South America tell you that there is no
similarity between their wild Horses and those of Asia Minor; the cut of
their heads is very different, and they are commonly chestnut or bay-
coloured. It is quite clear, therefore, that as by these facts there ought to
have been two primitive stocks, they go for nothing in support of the
assumption that races recur to one primitive stock, and so far as this
evidence is concerned, it falls to the ground.
Suppose for a moment that it were so, and that domesticated races, when
turned wild, did return to some common condition, I cannot see that this
would prove much more than that similar conditions are likely to produce
similar results; and that when you take back domesticated animals into what
we call natural conditions, you do exactly the same thing as if you carefully
undid all the work you had gone through, for the purpose of bringing the
animal from its wild to its domesticated state. I do not see anything very
wonderful in the fact, if it took all that trouble to get it from a wild state,
that it should go back into its original state as soon as you removed the
conditions which produced the variation to the domesticated form. There is
an important fact, however, forcibly brought forward by Mr. Darwin, which
has been noticed in connection with the breeding of domesticated pigeons;
and it is, that however different these breeds of pigeons may be from each
other, and we have already noticed the great differences in these breeds, that
if, among any of those variations, you chance to have a blue pigeon turn up,
it will be sure to have the black bars across the wings, which are
characteristic of the original wild stock, the Rock Pigeon.
Now, this is certainly a very remarkable circumstance; but I do not see
myself how it tells very strongly either one way or the other. I think, in fact,
that this argument in favour of recurrence to the primitive type might prove
a great deal too much for those who so constantly bring it forward. For

example, Mr. Darwin has very forcibly urged, that nothing is commoner
than if you examine a dun horse—and I had an opportunity of verifying this
illustration lately, while in the islands of the West Highlands, where there
are a great many dun horses—to find that horse exhibit a long black stripe
down his back, very often stripes on his shoulder, and very often stripes on
his legs. I, myself, saw a pony of this description a short time ago, in a
baker’s cart, near Rothesay, in Bute: it had the long stripe down the back,
and stripes on the shoulders and legs, just like those of the Ass, the Quagga,
and the Zebra. Now, if we interpret the theory of recurrence as applied to
this case, might it not be said that here was a case of a variation exhibiting
the characters and conditions of an animal occupying something like an
intermediate position between the Horse, the Ass, the Quagga, and the
Zebra, and from which these had been developed? In the same way with
regard even to Man. Every anatomist will tell you that there is nothing
commoner, in dissecting the human body, than to meet with what are called
muscular variations—that is, if you dissect two bodies very carefully, you
will probably find that the modes of attachment and insertion of the muscles
are not exactly the same in both, there being great peculiarities in the mode
in which the muscles are arranged; and it is very singular, that in some
dissections of the human body you will come upon arrangements of the
muscles very similar indeed to the same parts in the Apes. Is the conclusion
in that case to be, that this is like the black bars in the case of the Pigeon,
and that it indicates a recurrence to the primitive type from which the
animals have been probably developed? Truly, I think that the opponents of
modification and variation had better leave the argument of recurrence
alone, or it may prove altogether too strong for them.
To sum up,—the evidence as far as we have gone is against the argument as
to any limit to divergences, so far as structure is concerned; and in favour of
a physiological limitation. By selective breeding we can produce structural
divergences as great as those of species, but we cannot produce equal
physiological divergences. For the present I leave the question there.
Now, the next problem that lies before us—and it is an extremely important
one—is this: Does this selective breeding occur in nature? Because, if there
is no proof of it, all that I have been telling you goes for nothing in
accounting for the origin of species. Are natural causes competent to play
the part of selection in perpetuating varieties? Here we labour under very

great difficulties. In the last lecture I had occasion to point out to you the
extreme difficulty of obtaining evidence even of the first origin of those
varieties which we know to have occurred in domesticated animals. I told
you, that almost always the origin of these varieties is overlooked, so that I
could only produce two or three cases, as that of Gratio Kelleia and of the
Ancon sheep. People forget, or do not take notice of them until they come
to have a prominence; and if that is true of artificial cases, under our own
eyes, and in animals in our own care, how much more difficult it must be to
have at first hand good evidence of the origin of varieties in nature! Indeed,
I do not know that it is possible by direct evidence to prove the origin of a
variety in nature, or to prove selective breeding; but I will tell you what we
can prove—and this comes to the same thing—that varieties exist in nature
within the limits of species, and, what is more, that when a variety has come
into existence in nature, there are natural causes and conditions, which are
amply competent to play the part of a selective breeder; and although that is
not quite the evidence that one would like to have—though it is not direct
testimony—yet it is exceeding good and exceedingly powerful evidence in
its way.
As to the first point, of varieties existing among natural species, I might
appeal to the universal experience of every naturalist, and of any person
who has ever turned any attention at all to the characteristics of plants and
animals in a state of nature; but I may as well take a few definite cases, and
I will begin with Man himself.
I am one of those who believe that, at present, there is no evidence
whatever for saying, that mankind sprang originally from any more than a
single pair; I must say, that I cannot see any good ground whatever, or even
any tenable sort of evidence, for believing that there is more than one
species of Man. Nevertheless, as you know, just as there are numbers of
varieties in animals, so there are remarkable varieties of men. I speak not
merely of those broad and distinct variations which you see at a glance.
Everybody, of course, knows the difference between a Negro and a white
man, and can tell a Chinaman from an Englishman. They each have peculiar
characteristics of colour and physiognomy; but you must recollect that the
characters of these races go very far deeper—they extend to the bony
structure, and to the characters of that most important of all organs to us—
the brain; so that, among men belonging to different races, or even within

the same race, one man shall have a brain a third, or half, or even seventy
per cent bigger than another; and if you take the whole range of human
brains, you will find a variation in some cases of a hundred per cent. Apart
from these variations in the size of the brain, the characters of the skull
vary. Thus if I draw the figures of a Mongul and of a Negro head on the
blackboard, in the case of the last the breadth would be about seven-tenths,
and in the other it would be nine-tenths of the total length. So that you see
there is abundant evidence of variation among men in their natural
condition. And if you turn to other animals there is just the same thing. The
fox, for example, which has a very large geographical distribution all over
Europe, and parts of Asia, and on the American Continent, varies greatly.
There are mostly large foxes in the North, and smaller ones in the South. In
Germany alone, the foresters reckon some eight different sorts.
Of the tiger, no one supposes that there is more than one species; they
extend from the hottest parts of Bengal, into the dry, cold, bitter steppes of
Siberia, into a latitude of 50°,—so that they may even prey upon the
reindeer. These tigers have exceedingly different characteristics, but still
they all keep their general features, so that there is no doubt as to their
being tigers. The Siberian tiger has a thick fur, a small mane, and a
longitudinal stripe down the back, while the tigers of Java and Sumatra
differ in many important respects from the tigers of Northern Asia. So lions
vary; so birds vary; and so, if you go further back and lower down in
creation, you find that fishes vary. In different streams, in the same country
even, you will find the trout to be quite different to each other and easily
recognizable by those who fish in the particular streams. There is the same
differences in leeches; leech collectors can easily point out to you the
differences and the peculiarities which you yourself would probably pass
by; so with fresh-water mussels; so, in fact, with every animal you can
mention.
In plants there is the same kind of variation. Take such a case even as the
common bramble. The botanists are all at war about it; some of them
wanting to make out that there are many species of it, and others
maintaining that they are but many varieties of one species; and they cannot
settle to this day which is a species and which is a variety!

So that there can be no doubt whatsoever that any plant and any animal may
vary in nature; that varieties may arise in the way I have described,—as
spontaneous varieties,—and that those varieties may be perpetuated in the
same way that I have shown you spontaneous varieties are perpetuated; I
say, therefore, that there can be no doubt as to the origin and perpetuation of
varieties in nature.
But the question now is:—Does selection take place in nature? is there
anything like the operation of man in exercising selective breeding, taking
place in nature? You will observe that, at present, I say nothing about
species; I wish to confine myself to the consideration of the production of
those natural races which everybody admits to exist. The question is,
whether in nature there are causes competent to produce races, just in the
same way as man is able to produce, by selection, such races of animals as
we have already noticed.
When a variety has arisen, the Conditions of Existence are such as to
exercise an influence which is exactly comparable to that of artificial
selection. By Conditions of Existence I mean two things,—there are
conditions which are furnished by the physical, the inorganic world, and
there are conditions of existence which are furnished by the organic world.
There is, in the first place, Climate; under that head I include only
temperature and the varied amount of moisture of particular places. In the
next place there is what is technically called Station, which means—given
the climate, the particular kind of place in which an animal or a plant lives
or grows; for example, the station of a fish is in the water, of a fresh-water
fish in fresh water; the station of a marine fish is in the sea, and a marine
animal may have a station higher or deeper. So again with land animals: the
differences in their stations are those of different soils and neighbourhoods;
some being best adapted to a calcareous, and others to an arenaceous soil.
The third condition of existence is Food, by which I mean food in the
broadest sense, the supply of the materials necessary to the existence of an
organic being; in the case of a plant the inorganic matters, such as carbonic
acid, water, ammonia, and the earthy salts or salines; in the case of the
animal the inorganic and organic matters, which we have seen they require;
then these are all, at least the two first, what we may call the inorganic or
physical conditions of existence. Food takes a mid-place, and then come the
organic conditions; by which I mean the conditions which depend upon the

state of the rest of the organic creation, upon the number and kind of living
beings, with which an animal is surrounded. You may class these under two
heads: there are organic beings, which operate as opponents, and there are
organic beings which operate as helpers to any given organic creature. The
opponents may be of two kinds: there are the indirect opponents, which are
what we may call rivals; and there are the direct opponents, those which
strive to destroy the creature; and these we call enemies. By rivals I mean,
of course, in the case of plants, those which require for their support the
same kind of soil and station, and, among animals, those which require the
same kind of station, or food, or climate; those are the indirect opponents;
the direct opponents are, of course, those which prey upon an animal or
vegetable. The helpers may also be regarded as direct and indirect: in the
case of a carnivorous animal, for example, a particular herbaceous plant
may in multiplying be an indirect helper, by enabling the herbivora on
which the carnivore preys to get more food, and thus to nourish the
carnivore more abundantly; the direct helper may be best illustrated by
reference to some parasitic creature, such as the tape-worm. The tape-worm
exists in the human intestines, so that the fewer there are of men the fewer
there will be of tape-worms, other things being alike. It is a humiliating
reflection, perhaps, that we may be classed as direct helpers to the tape-
worm, but the fact is so: we can all see that if there were no men there
would be no tape-worms.
It is extremely difficult to estimate, in a proper way, the importance and the
working of the Conditions of Existence. I do not think there were any of us
who had the remotest notion of properly estimating them until the
publication of Mr. Darwin’s work, which has placed them before us with
remarkable clearness; and I must endeavour, as far as I can in my own
fashion, to give you some notion of how they work. We shall find it easiest
to take a simple case, and one as free as possible from every kind of
complication.
I will suppose, therefore, that all the habitable part of this globe—the dry
land, amounting to about 51,000,000 square miles,—I will suppose that the
whole of that dry land has the same climate, and that it is composed of the
same kind of rock or soil, so that there will be the same station everywhere;
we thus get rid of the peculiar influence of different climates and stations. I
will then imagine that there shall be but one organic being in the world, and

that shall be a plant. In this we start fair. Its food is to be carbonic acid,
water and ammonia, and the saline matters in the soil, which are, by the
supposition, everywhere alike. We take one single plant, with no opponents,
no helpers, and no rivals; it is to be a “fair field, and no favour.” Now, I will
ask you to imagine further that it shall be a plant which shall produce every
year fifty seeds, which is a very moderate number for a plant to produce;
and that, by the action of the winds and currents, these seeds shall be
equally and gradually distributed over the whole surface of the land. I want
you now to trace out what will occur, and you will observe that I am not
talking fallaciously any more than a mathematician does when he expounds
his problem. If you show that the conditions of your problem are such as
may actually occur in nature and do not transgress any of the known laws of
nature in working out your proposition, then you are as safe in the
conclusion you arrive at as is the mathematician in arriving at the solution
of his problem. In science, the only way of getting rid of the complications
with which a subject of this kind is environed, is to work in this deductive
method. What will be the result, then? I will suppose that every plant
requires one square foot of ground to live upon; and the result will be that,
in the course of nine years, the plant will have occupied every single
available spot in the whole globe! I have chalked upon the blackboard the
figures by which I arrive at the result:—

Plants. Plants.
1 × 50 in 1st year = 50
50 × 50 „ 2nd „ = 2,500
2,500 × 50 „ 3rd „ = 125,000
125,000 × 50 „ 4th „ = 6,250,000
6,250,000 × 50 „ 5th „ = 312,500,000
312,500,000 × 50 „ 6th „ = 15,625,000,000
15,625,000,000× 50 „ 7th „ = 781,250,000,000
781,250,000,000× 50 „ 8th „ = 39,062,500,000,000
39,062,500,000,000× 50 „ 9th „ = 1,953,125,000,000,000

51,000,000 sq. miles—the dry surface

sq.
of the earth × 27,878,400—the } =
ft.
1,421,798,400,000,000
number of sq. ft. in 1 sq. mile
being
531,326,600,000,000
square feet less than would be required
at the end of the ninth year.

You will see from this that, at the end of the first year the single plant will
have produced fifty more of its kind; by the end of the second year these
will have increased to 2500; and so on, in succeeding years, you get beyond
even trillions; and I am not at all sure that I could tell you what the proper
arithmetical denomination of the total number really is; but, at any rate, you
will understand the meaning of all those noughts. Then you see that, at the
bottom, I have taken the 51,000,000 of square miles, constituting the
surface of the dry land; and as the number of square feet are placed under
and subtracted from the number of seeds that would be produced in the
ninth year, you can see at once that there would be an immense number
more of plants than there would be square feet of ground for their
accommodation. This is certainly quite enough to prove my point; that
between the eighth and ninth year after being planted the single plant would
have stocked the whole available surface of the earth.
This is a thing which is hardly conceivable—it seems hardly imaginable—
yet it is so. It is indeed simply the law of Malthus exemplified. Mr. Malthus
was a clergy-man, who worked out this subject most minutely and truthfully
some years ago; he showed quite clearly,—and although he was much
abused for his conclusions at the time, they have never yet been disproved
and never will be—he showed that in consequence of the increase in the
number of organic beings in a geometrical ratio, while the means of
existence cannot be made to increase in the same ratio, that there must
come a time when the number of organic beings will be in excess of the
power of production of nutriment, and that thus some check must arise to
the further increase of those organic beings. At the end of the ninth year we
have seen that each plant would not be able to get its full square foot of
ground, and at the end of another year it would have to share that space
with fifty others the produce of the seeds which it would give off.

What, then, takes place? Every plant grows up, flourishes, occupies its
square foot of ground, and gives off its fifty seeds; but notice this, that out
of this number only one can come to anything; there is thus, as it were,
forty-nine chances to one against its growing up; it depends upon the most
fortuitous circumstances whether any one of these fifty seeds shall grow up
and flourish, or whether it shall die and perish. This is what Mr. Darwin has
drawn attention to, and called the “Struggle for Existence”; and I have
taken this simple case of a plant because some people imagine that the
phrase seems to imply a sort of fight.
I have taken this plant and shown you that this is the result of the ratio of
the increase, the necessary result of the arrival of a time coming for every
species when exactly as many members must be destroyed as are born; that
is the inevitable ultimate result of the rate of production. Now, what is the
result of all this? I have said that there are forty-nine struggling against
every one; and it amounts to this, that the smallest possible start given to
any one seed may give it an advantage which will enable it to get ahead of
all the others; anything that will enable any one of these seeds to germinate
six hours before any of the others will, other things being alike, enable it to
choke them out altogether. I have shown you that there is no particular in
which plants will not vary from each other; it is quite possible that one of
our imaginary plants may vary in such a character as the thickness of the
integument of its seeds; it might happen that one of the plants might
produce seeds having a thinner integument, and that would enable the seeds
of that plant to germinate a little quicker than those of any of the others, and
those seeds would most inevitably extinguish the forty-nine times as many
that were struggling with them.
I have put it in this way, but you see the practical result of the process is the
same as if some person had nurtured the one and destroyed the other seeds.
It does not matter how the variation is produced, so long as it is once
allowed to occur. The variation in the plant once fairly started tends to
become hereditary and reproduce itself; the seeds would spread themselves
in the same way and take part in the struggle with the forty-nine hundred, or
forty-nine thousand, with which they might be exposed. Thus, by degrees,
this variety with some slight organic change or modification, must spread
itself over the whole surface of the habitable globe, and extirpate or replace
the other kinds. That is what is meant by Natural Selection; that is the

kind of argument by which it is perfectly demonstrable that the conditions
of existence may play exactly the same part for natural varieties as man
does for domesticated varieties. No one doubts at all that particular
circumstances may be more favourable for one plant and less so for another,
and the moment you admit that, you admit the selective power of nature.
Now, although I have been putting a hypothetical case, you must not
suppose that I have been reasoning hypothetically. There are plenty of direct
experiments which bear out what we may call the theory of natural
selection; there is extremely good authority for the statement that if you
take the seed of mixed varieties of wheat and sow it, collecting the seed
next year and sowing it again, at length you will find that out of all your
varieties only two or three have lived, or perhaps even only one. There were
one or two varieties which were best fitted to get on, and they have killed
out the other kinds in just the same way and with just the same certainty as
if you had taken the trouble to remove them. As I have already said, the
operation of nature is exactly the same as the artificial operation of man.
But if this be true of that simple case, which I put before you, where there is
nothing but the rivalry of one member of a species with others, what must
be the operation of selective conditions, when you recollect as a matter of
fact, that for every species of animal or plant there are fifty or a hundred
species which might all, more or less, be comprehended in the same
climate, food, and station;—that every plant has multitudinous animals
which prey upon it, and which are its direct opponents; and that these have
other animals preying upon them,—that every plant has its indirect helpers
in the birds that scatter abroad its seed, and the animals that manure it with
their dung;—I say, when these things are considered, it seems impossible
that any variation which may arise in a species in nature should not tend in
some way or other either to be a little better or worse than the previous
stock; if it is a little better it will have an advantage over and tend to
extirpate the latter in this crush and struggle; and if it is a little worse it will
itself be extirpated.
I know nothing that more appropriately expresses this, than the phrase, “the
struggle for existence”; because it brings before your minds, in a vivid sort
of way, some of the simplest possible circumstances connected with it.
When a struggle is intense there must be some who are sure to be trodden
down, crushed, and overpowered by others; and there will be some who just

manage to get through only by the help of the slightest accident. I recollect
reading an account of the famous retreat of the French troops, under
Napoleon, from Moscow. Worn out, tired, and dejected, they at length came
to a great river over which there was but one bridge for the passage of the
vast army. Disorganized and demoralized as that army was, the struggle
must certainly have been a terrible one—every one heeding only himself,
and crushing through the ranks and treading down his fellows. The writer of
the narrative, who was himself one of those who were fortunate enough to
succeed in getting over, and not among the thousands who were left behind
or forced into the river, ascribed his escape to the fact that he saw striding
onward through the mass a great strong fellow,—one of the French
Cuirassiers, who had on a large blue cloak—and he had enough presence of
mind to catch and retain a hold of this strong man’s cloak. He says, “I
caught hold of his cloak, and although he swore at me and cut at and struck
me by turns, and at last, when he found he could not shake me off, fell to
entreating me to leave go or I should prevent him from escaping, besides
not assisting myself, I still kept tight hold of him, and would not quit my
grasp until he had at last dragged me through.” Here you see was a case of
selective saving—if we may so term it—depending for its success on the
strength of the cloth of the Cuirassier’s cloak. It is the same in nature; every
species has its bridge of Beresina; it has to fight its way through and
struggle with other species; and when well nigh overpowered, it may be that
the smallest chance, something in its colour, perhaps—the minutest
circumstance—will turn the scale one way or the other.
Suppose that by a variation of the black race it had produced the white man
at any time—you know that the Negroes are said to believe this to have
been the case, and to imagine that Cain was the first white man, and that we
are his descendants—suppose that this had ever happened, and that the first
residence of this human being was on the West Coast of Africa. There is no
great structural difference between the white man and the Negro, and yet
there is something so singularly different in the constitution of the two, that
the malarias of that country, which do not hurt the black at all, cut off and
destroy the white. Then you see there would have been a selective operation
performed; if the white man had risen in that way, he would have been
selected out and removed by means of the malaria. Now there really is a
very curious case of selection of this sort among pigs, and it is a case of

selection of colour, too. In the woods of Florida there are a great many pigs,
and it is a very curious thing that they are all black, every one of them.
Professor Wyman was there some years ago, and on noticing no pigs but
these black ones, he asked some of the people how it was that they had no
white pigs, and the reply was that in the woods of Florida there was a root
which they called the Paint Root, and that if the white pigs were to eat any
of it, it had the effect of making their hoofs crack, and they died, but if the
black pigs ate any of it, it did not hurt them at all. Here was a very simple
case of natural selection. A skilful breeder could not more carefully develop
the black breed of pigs, and weed out all the white pigs, than the Paint Root
does.
To show you how remarkably indirect may be such natural selective
agencies as I have referred to, I will conclude by noticing a case mentioned
by Mr. Darwin, and which is certainly one of the most curious of its kind. It
is that of the Humble Bee. It has been noticed that there are a great many
more humble bees in the neighbourhood of towns, than out in the open
country; and the explanation of the matter is this: the humble bees build
nests, in which they store their honey and deposit the larvæ and eggs. The
field mice are amazingly fond of the honey and larvæ; therefore, wherever
there are plenty of field mice, as in the country, the humble bees are kept
down; but in the neighbourhood of towns, the number of cats which prowl
about the fields eat up the field mice, and of course the more mice they eat
up the less there are to prey upon the larvæ of the bees—the cats are
therefore the indirect helpers of the bees.[54]
Coming back a step farther we may say that the old maids are also indirect
friends of the humble bees, and indirect enemies of the field mice, as they
keep the cats which eat up the latter! This is an illustration somewhat
beneath the dignity of the subject, perhaps, but it occurs to me in passing,
and with it I will conclude this lecture.

FOOTNOTES:
[53] I lay stress here on the practical signification of “Species.” Whether a
physiological test between species exist or not, it is hardly ever applicable by the
practical naturalist.

[54] The humble bees, on the other hand, are direct helpers of some plants, such
as the heartsease and red clover, which are fertilized by the visits of the bees;
and they are indirect helpers of the numerous insects which are more or less
completely supported by the heartsease and red clover.

IX

A CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF THE
POSITION OF MR. DARWIN’S WORK, “ON
THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES,” IN RELATION TO
THE COMPLETE THEORY OF THE CAUSES
OF THE PHENOMENA OF ORGANIC
NATURE.
In the preceding lectures I have endeavoured to give you an account of
those facts, and of those reasonings from facts, which form the data upon
which all theories regarding the causes of the phenomena of organic nature
must be based. And, although I have had frequent occasion to quote Mr.
Darwin—as all persons hereafter, in speaking upon these subjects, will have
occasion to quote his famous book on the “Origin of Species,”—you must
yet remember that, wherever I have quoted him, it has not been upon
theoretical points, or for statements in any way connected with his
particular speculations, but on matters of fact, brought forward by himself,
or collected by himself, and which appear incidentally in his book. If a man
will make a book, professing to discuss a single question, an encyclopædia,
I cannot help it.
Now, having had an opportunity of considering in this sort of way the
different statements bearing upon all theories whatsoever, I have to lay
before you, as fairly as I can, what is Mr. Darwin’s view of the matter and
what position his theories hold, when judged by the principles which I have
previously laid down, as deciding our judgments upon all theories and
hypotheses.
I have already stated to you that the inquiry respecting the causes of the
phenomena of organic nature resolves itself into two problems—the first
being the question of the origination of living or organic beings; and the

second being the totally distinct problem of the modification and
perpetuation of organic beings when they have already come into existence.
The first question Mr. Darwin does not touch; he does not deal with it at all;
but he says:—“Given the origin of organic matter—supposing its creation
to have already taken place, my object is to show in consequence of what
laws and what demonstrable properties of organic matter, and of its
environments, such states of organic nature as those with which we are
acquainted must have come about.” This, you will observe, is a perfectly
legitimate proposition; every person has a right to define the limits of the
inquiry which he sets before himself; and yet it is a most singular thing that
in all the multifarious, and, not unfrequently, ignorant attacks which have
been made upon the “Origin of Species,” there is nothing which has been
more speciously criticised than this particular limitation. If people have
nothing else to urge against the book, they say—“Well, after all, you see
Mr. Darwin’s explanation of the ‘Origin of Species’ is not good for much,
because, in the long run, he admits that he does not know how organic
matter began to exist. But if you admit any special creation for the first
particle of organic matter you may just as well admit it for all the rest; five
hundred or five thousand distinct creations are just as intelligible, and just
as little difficult to understand, as one.” The answer to these cavils is two-
fold. In the first place, all human inquiry must stop somewhere; all our
knowledge and all our investigation cannot take us beyond the limits set by
the finite and restricted character of our faculties, or destroy the endless
unknown, which accompanies, like its shadow, the endless procession of
phenomena. So far as I can venture to offer an opinion on such a matter, the
purpose of our being in existence, the highest object that human beings can
set before themselves, is not the pursuit of any such chimera as the
annihilation of the unknown; but it is simply the unwearied endeavour to
remove its boundaries a little further from our little sphere of action.
I wonder if any historian would for a moment admit the objection, that it is
preposterous to trouble ourselves about the history of the Roman Empire,
because we do not know anything positive about the origin and first
building of the city of Rome! Would it be a fair objection to urge, respecting
the sublime discoveries of a Newton, or a Kepler, those great philosophers,
whose discoveries have been of the profoundest benefit and service to all
men,—to say to them—“After all that you have told us as to how the

planets revolve, and how they are maintained in their orbits, you cannot tell
us what is the cause of the origin of the sun, moon, and stars. So what is the
use of what you have done?” Yet these objections would not be one whit
more preposterous than the objections which have been made to the “Origin
of Species.” Mr. Darwin, then, had a perfect right to limit his inquiry as he
pleased, and the only question for us—the inquiry being so limited—is to
ascertain whether the method of his inquiry is sound or unsound; whether
he has obeyed the canons which must guide and govern all investigation, or
whether he has broken them; and it was because our inquiry this evening is
essentially limited to that question, that I spent a good deal of time in a
former lecture (which, perhaps some of you thought might have been better
employed) in endeavouring to illustrate the method and nature of scientific
inquiry in general. We shall now have to put in practice the principles that I
then laid down.
I stated to you in substance, if not in words, that wherever there are
complex masses of phenomena to be inquired into, whether they be
phenomena of the affairs of daily life, or whether they belong to the more
abstruse and difficult problems laid before the philosopher, our course of
proceeding in unravelling that complex chain of phenomena with a view to
get at its cause, is always the same; in all cases we must invent an
hypothesis; we must place before ourselves some more or less likely
supposition respecting that cause; and then, having assumed an hypothesis,
having supposed a cause for the phenomena in question, we must
endeavour, on the one hand, to demonstrate our hypothesis, or, on the other,
to upset and reject it altogether, by testing it in three ways. We must, in the
first place, be prepared to prove that the supposed causes of the phenomena
exist in nature; that they are what the logicians call vera causæ—true
causes;—in the next place, we should be prepared to show that the assumed
causes of the phenomena are competent to produce such phenomena as
those which we wish to explain by them; and in the last place, we ought to
be able to show that no other known causes are competent to produce these
phenomena. If we can succeed in satisfying these three conditions we shall
have demonstrated our hypothesis; or rather I ought to say, we shall have
proved it as far as certainty is possible for us; for, after all, there is no one of
our surest convictions which may not be upset, or at any rate modified by a
further accession of knowledge. It was because it satisfied these conditions

that we accepted the hypothesis as to the disappearance of the tea-pot and
spoons in the case I supposed in a previous lecture; we found that our
hypothesis on that subject was tenable and valid, because the supposed
cause existed in nature, because it was competent to account for the
phenomena, and because no other known cause was competent to account
for them; and it is upon similar grounds that any hypothesis you choose to
name is accepted in science as tenable and valid.
What is Mr. Darwin’s hypothesis? As I apprehend it—for I have put it into a
shape more convenient for common purposes than I could find verbatim in
his book—as I apprehend it, I say, it is, that all the phenomena of organic
nature, past and present, result from, or are caused by, the inter-action of
those properties of organic matter, which we have called Atavism and
Variability, with the Conditions of Existence; or, in other words,—given
the existence of organic matter, its tendency to transmit its properties, and
its tendency occasionally to vary; and, lastly, given the conditions of
existence by which organic matter is surrounded—that these put together
are the causes of the Present and of the Past conditions of Organic Nature.
Such is the hypothesis as I understand it. Now let us see how it will stand
the various tests which I laid down just now. In the first place, do these
supposed causes of the phenomena exist in nature? Is it the fact that in
nature these properties of organic matter—atavism and variability—and
those phenomena which we have called the conditions of existence,—is it
true that they exist? Well, of course, if they do not exist, all that I have told
you in the last three or four lectures must be incorrect, because I have been
attempting to prove that they do exist, and I take it that there is abundant
evidence that they do exist; so far, therefore, the hypothesis does not break
down.
But in the next place comes a much more difficult inquiry:—Are the causes
indicated competent to give rise to the phenomena of organic nature? I
suspect that this is indubitable to a certain extent. It is demonstrable, I think,
as I have endeavoured to show you, that they are perfectly competent to
give rise to all the phenomena which are exhibited by Races in nature.
Furthermore, I believe that they are quite competent to account for all that
we may call purely structural phenomena which are exhibited by Species in
nature. On that point also I have already enlarged somewhat. Again, I think

that the causes assumed are competent to account for most of the
physiological characteristics of species, and I not only think that they are
competent to account for them, but I think that they account for many
things which otherwise remain wholly unaccountable and inexplicable, and
I may say incomprehensible. For a full exposition of the grounds on which
this conviction is based, I must refer you to Mr. Darwin’s work; all that I
can do now is to illustrate what I have said by two or three cases taken
almost at random.
I drew your attention, on a previous evening, to the facts which are
embodied in our systems of Classification, which are the results of the
examination and comparison of the different members of the animal
kingdom one with another. I mentioned that the whole of the animal
kingdom is divisible into five sub-kingdoms; that each of these sub-
kingdoms is again divisible into provinces; that each province may be
divided into classes, and the classes into the successively smaller groups,
orders, families, genera, and species.
Now, in each of these groups, the resemblance in structure among the
members of the group is closer in proportion as the group is smaller. Thus, a
man and a worm are members of the animal kingdom in virtue of certain
apparently slight though really fundamental resemblances which they
present. But a man and a fish are members of the same Sub-kingdom
Vertebrata, because they are much more like one another than either of
them is to a worm, or a snail, or any member of the other sub-kingdoms.
For similar reasons men and horses are arranged as members of the same
Class, Mammalia; men and apes as members of the same Order, Primates;
and if there were any animals more like men than they were like any of the
apes, and yet different from men in important and constant particulars of
their organization, we should rank them as members of the same Family, or
of the same Genus, but as of distinct Species.
That it is possible to arrange all the varied forms of animals into groups,
having this sort of singular subordination one to the other, is a very
remarkable circumstance; but, as Mr. Darwin remarks, this is a result which
is quite to be expected, if the principles which he lays down be correct.
Take the case of the races which are known to be produced by the operation
of atavism and variability, and the conditions of existence which check and

modify these tendencies. Take the case of the pigeons that I brought before
you: there it was shown that they might be all classed as belonging to some
one of five principal divisions, and that within these divisions other
subordinate groups might be formed. The members of these groups are
related to one another in just the same way as the genera of a family, and
the groups themselves as the families of an order, or the orders of a class;
while all have the same sort of structural relations with the wild Rock-
pigeon, as the members of any great natural group have with a real or
imaginary typical form. Now, we know that all varieties of pigeons of every
kind have arisen by a process of selective breeding from a common stock,
the Rock-pigeon; hence, you see, that if all species of animals have
proceeded from some common stock, the general character of their
structural relations, and of our systems of classification, which express
those relations, would be just what we find them to be. In other words, the
hypothetical cause is, so far, competent to produce effects similar to those
of the real cause.
Take, again, another set of very remarkable facts,—the existence of what
are called rudimentary organs, organs for which we can find no obvious
use, in the particular animal economy in which they are found, and yet
which are there.
Such are the splint-like bones in the leg of the horse, which I here show
you, and which correspond with bones which belong to certain toes and
fingers in the human hand and foot. In the horse you see they are quite
rudimentary, and bear neither toes nor fingers; so that the horse has only
one “finger” in his fore-foot and one “toe” in his hind-foot. But it is a very
curious thing that the animals closely allied to the horse show more toes
than he; as the rhinoceros, for instance: he has these extra toes well formed,
and anatomical facts show very clearly that he is very closely related to the
horse indeed. So we may say that animals, in an anatomical sense nearly
related to the horse, have those parts which are rudimentary in him, fully
developed.
Again, the sheep and the cow have no cutting-teeth, but only a hard pad in
the upper jaw. That is the common characteristic of ruminants in general.
But the calf has in its upper jaw some rudiments of teeth which never are
developed, and never play the part of teeth at all. Well, if you go back in

time, you find some of the older, now extinct, allies of the ruminants have
well-developed teeth in their upper jaws; and at the present day the pig
(which is in structure closely connected with ruminants) has well-developed
teeth in its upper jaw; so that here is another instance of organs well
developed and very useful, in one animal, represented by rudimentary
organs, for which we can discover no purpose whatsoever, in another
closely allied animal. The whalebone whale, again, has horny “whalebone”
plates in its mouth, and no teeth; but the young fœtal whale, before it is
born, has teeth in its jaws; they, however, are never used, and they never
come to anything. But other members of the group to which the whale
belongs have well-developed teeth in both jaws.
Upon any hypothesis of special creation, facts of this kind appear to me to
be entirely unaccountable and inexplicable, but they cease to be so if you
accept Mr. Darwin’s hypothesis, and see reason for believing that the
whalebone whale and the whale with teeth in its mouth both sprang from a
whale that had teeth, and that the teeth of the fœtal whale are merely
remnants—recollections, if we may so say—of the extinct whale. So in the
case of the horse and the rhinoceros: suppose that both have descended by
modification from some earlier form which had the normal number of toes,
and the persistence of the rudimentary bones which no longer support toes
in the horse becomes comprehensible.
In the language that we speak in England, and in the language of the
Greeks, there are identical verbal roots, or elements entering into the
composition of words. That fact remains unintelligible so long as we
suppose English and Greek to be independently created tongues; but when
it is shown that both languages are descended from one original, the
Sanscrit, we give an explanation of that resemblance. In the same way the
existence of identical structural roots, if I may so term them, entering into
the composition of widely different animals, is striking evidence in favour
of the descent of those animals from a common original.
To turn to another kind of illustration:—If you regard the whole series of
stratified rocks—that enormous thickness of sixty or seventy thousand feet
that I have mentioned before, constituting the only record we have of a
most prodigious lapse of time, that time being, in all probability, but a
fraction of that of which we have no record;—if you observe in these

successive strata of rocks successive groups of animals arising and dying
out, a constant succession, giving you the same kind of impression, as you
travel from one group of strata to another, as you would have in travelling
from one country to another;—when you find this constant succession of
forms, their traces obliterated except to the man of science,—when you
look at this wonderful history, and ask what it means, it is only a paltering
with words if you are offered the reply,—“They were so created.”
But if, on the other hand, you look on all forms of organized beings as the
results of the gradual modification of a primitive type, the facts receive a
meaning, and you see that these older conditions are the necessary
predecessors of the present. Viewed in this light the facts of palæontology
receive a meaning—upon any other hypothesis, I am unable to see, in the
slightest degree, what knowledge or signification we are to draw out of
them. Again, note as bearing upon the same point, the singular likeness
which obtains between the successive Faunæ and Floræ, whose remains are
preserved on the rocks: you never find any great and enormous difference
between the immediately successive Faunæ and Floræ, unless you have
reason to believe there has also been a great lapse of time or a great change
of conditions. The animals, for instance, of the newest tertiary rocks, in any
part of the world, are always, and without exception, found to be closely
allied with those which now live in that part of the world. For example, in
Europe, Asia, and Africa, the large mammals are at present rhinoceri,
hippopotami, elephants, lions, tigers, oxen, horses, &c.; and if you examine
the newest tertiary deposits, which contain the animals and plants which
immediately preceded those which now exist in the same country, you do
not find gigantic specimens of ant-eaters and kangaroos, but you find
rhinoceroses, elephants, lions, tigers, &c.,—of different species to those
now living,—but still their close allies. If you turn to South America,
where, at the present day, we have great sloths and armadilloes and
creatures of that kind, what do you find in the newest tertiaries? You find
the great sloth-like creature, the Megatherium, and the great armadillo, the
Glyptodon, and so on. And if you go to Australia you find the same law
holds good, namely, that that condition of organic nature which has
preceded the one which now exists, presents differences perhaps of species,
and of genera, but that the great types of organic structure are the same as
those which now flourish.

What meaning has this fact upon any other hypothesis or supposition than
one of successive modification? But if the population of the world, in any
age, is the result of the gradual modification of the forms which peopled it
in the preceding age,—if that has been the case, it is intelligible enough;
because we may expect that the creature that results from the modification
of an elephantine mammal shall be something like an elephant, and the
creature which is produced by the modification of an armadillo-like
mammal shall be like an armadillo. Upon that supposition, I say, the facts
are intelligible; upon any other, that I am aware of, they are not.
So far, the facts of palæontology are consistent with almost any form of the
doctrine of progressive modification; they would not be absolutely
inconsistent with the wild speculations of De Maillet, or with the less
objectionable hypothesis of Lamarck. But Mr. Darwin’s views have one
peculiar merit; and that is, that they are perfectly consistent with an array of
facts which are utterly inconsistent with and fatal to, any other hypothesis
of progressive modification which has yet been advanced. It is one
remarkable peculiarity of Mr. Darwin’s hypothesis that it involves no
necessary progression or incessant modification, and that it is perfectly
consistent with the persistence for any length of time of a given primitive
stock, contemporaneously with its modifications. To return to the case of
the domestic breeds of pigeons, for example; you have the Dove-cot pigeon,
which closely resembles the Rock-pigeon, from which they all started,
existing at the same time with the others. And if species are developed in
the same way in nature, a primitive stock and its modifications may,
occasionally, all find the conditions fitted for their existence; and though
they come into competition, to a certain extent, with one another, the
derivative species may not necessarily extirpate the primitive one, or vice
versâ.
Now palæontology shows us many facts which are perfectly harmonious
with these observed effects of the process by which Mr. Darwin supposes
species to have originated, but which appear to me to be totally inconsistent
with any other hypothesis which has been proposed. There are some groups
of animals and plants, in the fossil world, which have been said to belong to
“persistent types,” because they have persisted, with very little change
indeed, through a very great range of time, while everything about them has
changed largely. There are families of fishes whose type of construction has

persisted all the way from the carboniferous rock right up to the cretaceous;
and others which have lasted through almost the whole range of the
secondary rocks, and from the lias to the older tertiaries. It is something
stupendous this—to consider a genus lasting without essential
modifications through all this enormous lapse of time while almost
everything else was changed and modified.
Thus I have no doubt that Mr. Darwin’s hypothesis will be found competent
to explain the majority of the phenomena exhibited by species in nature; but
in an earlier lecture I spoke cautiously with respect to its power of
explaining all the physiological peculiarities of species.
There is, in fact, one set of these peculiarities which the theory of selective
modification, as it stands at present, is not wholly competent to explain, and
that is the group of phenomena which I mentioned to you under the name of
Hybridism, and which I explained to consist in the sterility of the offspring
of certain species when crossed one with another. It matters not one whit
whether this sterility is universal, or whether it exists only in a single case.
Every hypothesis is bound to explain, or, at any rate, not be inconsistent
with, the whole of the facts which it professes to account for; and if there is
a single one of these facts which can be shown to be inconsistent with (I do
not merely mean inexplicable by, but contrary to,) the hypothesis, the
hypothesis falls to the ground,—it is worth nothing. One fact with which it
is positively inconsistent is worth as much, and as powerful in negativing
the hypothesis, as five hundred. If I am right in thus defining the obligations
of an hypothesis, Mr. Darwin, in order to place his views beyond the reach
of all possible assault, ought to be able to demonstrate the possibility of
developing from a particular stock by selective breeding, two forms, which
should either be unable to cross one with another, or whose cross-bred
offspring should be infertile with one another.
For, you see, if you have not done that you have not strictly fulfilled all the
conditions of the problem; you have not shown that you can produce, by the
cause assumed, all the phenomena which you have in nature. Here are the
phenomena of Hybridism staring you in the face, and you cannot say, “I
can, by selective modification, produce these same results.” Now, it is
admitted on all hands that, at present, so far as experiments have gone, it
has not been found possible to produce this complete physiological