upon the other side. I, moreover, allege that the few and meagre facts he does adduce as telling in his favour, are in reality against him, even taking them as they are stated by himself.

6. This is no question, then, for a compromise, or one as to which there need be any doubt. One side is fairly entitled to claim the victory, and to have it honestly awarded. The problem has but one solution, patent to the common sense of mankind. So much so, indeed, that it appears to me that the modern archæological pursuit after some fancied missing link between men and brutes, with the view of achieving for civilized man a savage and pithecoid ancestry, can only be regarded as the temporary aberration of a mind-strained errant science or insane philosophy, but which, of course, very naturally thinks all the world mad, or blind and dull, except itself. Not that it wants altogether some kind of foundation. Even Don Quixote did. not originate knight-errantry; nor was his extravagance without some kind of precedent. He only "bettered his instruction." And so do the modern Darwinians. Before the present transmutation champions entered the field, we had the Vestiges of an unknown knight traversing "creation," and his theory of "evolution with design." There was also, before him, the ancestral Darwin, with "the loves of the plants" upon his banner; Lamarck with a duck's feet reversed and the goose's neck displayed, stretched out to the dimensions of a swan's; and the crack-brained Lord Monboddo exhibiting his sedentary monkeys rubbing off their tails, and (like Professor Huxley in our own day) even proud of this new-found ancestry. Their theories and reasonings have passed away; and we could not expect to have just the same abandoned ideas all over again, without some formal alterations, in addition to furbishing up the old weapons and armour. For as Mr. Gathorne Hardy said in the House of Commons last month :

:

"Scientific men arise with new so-called discoveries, which are done away afterwards by others, while these in their turn are swept away; but when these new discoveries become old and new ones arise, these men do not say, 'What fools we have been'; nor do they ever apologize for their errors, based upon the discoveries which have so completely failed to support them."*

*He adds: "Every man seems wanting to teach, and the only checks are those sound old foundations which at all events have antiquity on their side, and have union with the whole of Christendom, against those men who would by their so-called discoveries hastily upset everything which comes into collision with them. I do not wish in any way to check the advance of science and inquiry, but I desire people to wait a little, and not teach us so rapidly that all we have learnt is bad, and that all they have to tell us is good."-Vide the Times of 24th May, 1870.

And so, Mr. Charles Darwin and Mr. Alfred Wallace, in reviving the theory of transmutation, declare they have found out that ail existing forms of living beings are but results of a so-called "law of natural selection." And every philosopher who has "fallen in love" with this new scientific damsel, compassionating her "struggle for existence," like a true knighterrant "loves and rides away," of course to the maiden's rescue in her youthful difficulties. First, Mr. Darwin himself, trembling for the safety of this Dulcinea of his own fancy, gallops off somewhat unexpectedly, his lance a little out of rest, and protected with a "braw an' new "* shield, which bears upon it the ominous new-fangled motto "Pangenesis." While close upon his heels comes scampering fast his black and doughty squire, Professor Huxley, with arms, carbon-the modern for "sable," a nettle vert, barbed and seeded; for SupportersDexter, a demi-man couped and affrontée sa.; sinister, a monkey rampant, with tail nyllée, hands and feet counter-changed, "all ppr."; and waving wildly to and fro over all the flora and fauna of the globe, a long new-painted banner, with an endless scroll, inscribed with the single word "Protoplasm." Sir John Lubbock next enters the lists; but he does not follow the old-fashioned modes of warfare. He bears no shield nor banner, and appears chiefly to rely for victory in his wager of battle, on behalf of the evolution of civilized men out of apes and savages, upon a heavy supply of chipped flints, carried in large saddle-bags, and a remarkable kind of boomerang, which appears but a home-made and unskilled copy of the very effective weapon of the aboriginal savages of Australia.

7. It is with Sir John Lubbock we have now chiefly to do. Let us, therefore, proceed to the consideration of his paper. He thus opens the question:

"Side by side with the different opinions whether man constitutes one of many species, there are two opposite views as to the primitive condition of the first men, or first beings worthy to be so called.

"Many writers have considered that man was at first a mere savage, and that our history has on the whole been a steady progress towards civilization, though at times, and at some times for centuries, some races have been stationary, or even have retrograded. Other authors, of no less eminence, have taken a diametrically opposite view. According to them, man was, from the commencement, pretty much what he is at present;

* I introduce this apposite Scotticism, in order to observe incidentally, that it appears to be the primitive form and proper original of a still common expression which has first been developed into "bran new," and more recently transmuted into "brand new," by some one evidently under bottle-inspiration!

if possible, even more ignorant of the arts and sciences than now, but with mental qualities not inferior to our own. Savages they consider to be the degenerate descendants of far superior ancestors."

8. It will be observed that Sir John but slightly glances at the "missing link" between men and apes, in the allusion which he makes" to the primitive condition of the first men, or beings worthy to be so called;" and he only ventures to join issue upon the somewhat less monstrous proposition, "that man was at first a mere savage." This at least evidences some discretion; but it cannot be regarded as, in the best sense, very valorous, if we consider that Sir John Lubbock not long ago avowed himself "an humble disciple of Mr. Darwin's," and "ventured to claim for that gentleman's theory, that it is the only one which accounted in any way for the origin of man; for" (he adds) "all the other theories were, in his judgment, no theories at all, but simply confessions of ignorance, and did not carry those definite ideas to the mind which were conveyed by the theory of Mr. Darwin." *

9. Such were Sir John Lubbock's words at Nottingham on 25th August, 1866, when I read my paper "On the various Theories of Man's Past and Present Condition." In it I had said: "The difficulties of Darwinism begin long before we have got to man,"-inasmuch "as Darwinism begins with a human infant which had not human parents. But long before we arrive at that development under this theory, we are forced to ask, in our endeavour to realize what it professes to explain, 'How possibly the first young mammal was nourished in its struggle for existence, if its immediate progenitor was not a mammal?'" Nay, "passing over that, with all other difficulties which lie against Darwinism long before we come to its application to the origin of man," I also pointed out, that "to this physiological difficulty there is added one that is psychological; for, even if we see no difficulty as to the physical rearing and training of the first human baby which some favoured ape brought forth, we are forced to ask the transmutationist to favour us with some hint of the educational secret by which monkeys trained and elevated their progeny into men, when we ourselves are scarcely able, with all our enlightenment and educational efforts, to prevent our masses falling back to a state rather akin to that of monkeys and brutes."

10. Apparently Sir John Lubbock had intended to clear away and explain all these difficulties, by the "definite ideas" which he then professed Darwinism conveyed to his mind. But unfortunately he has failed to do so. He has not even attempted

*Journ. of Trans. of Vict. Inst., vol. i. p. 216.

it. And as he had heard my challenge, and seemed boldly to take it up, I can but attribute the subsequent oozing away of his courage to the pithy remarks of the late venerable President of the Ethnological Society, Mr. John Crawfurd, who thus delivered himself immediately after Sir John Lubbock had spoken upon the occasion referred to. Mr. Crawfurd said—

"For his part he could not believe one word of Darwin's theory. . . . It was a surprising thing to him that men of talent should nail themselves to such a belief. Man, it was said, was derived from a monkey. From what monkey? (Laughter.) There were two or three hundred kinds of monkeys, and the biggest monkey, namely, the gorilla, was the biggest brute. (Laughter.) Then there were monkeys with tails, and monkeys without tails, but curiously enough those which had no tails, and were consequently most like man, were the stupidest of all. (Laughter.)"

11. In Sir John Lubbock's paper, read just a year after this, we need not wonder that he did not risk breaking a lance for any of these monkeys. They may be considered as laughed off the field; or, in racing parlance, as "scratched" by Sir John himself. So let us now proceed to witness the fight he does essay to make on behalf of his supposed ancestral savages. In the first place I must point out that he does not state very accurately the views of his opponents. He says, “according to them, man was, from the commencement, pretty much what he is at present; if possible, even more ignorant of the arts and sciences than now, but with mental qualities not inferior to our own." The words I have emphasised by italics do not express opinions that could be entertained by any one who gives the matter five minutes' thought. At all events, those who believe that man was created "upright" and very good," do not believe he was from the commencement pretty much what he is at present. And no one can imagine that man could possibly when first created be anything else than totally ignorant of all arts and sciences, which are human inventions and discoveries that could only be arrived at in time by his ingenuity and experience. We must believe and know, with Solomon, that although "God created man upright," man himself must "have searched out his many inventions."* And in these words we have a hint of the important distinction I wish you hereafter to consider, between "moral and material civilization," as expressed in the title of this paper. Sir John, however, I doubt not, had no intention of mis-stating his opponents' case; and he correctly adds, "Savages they consider to be the degenerate descendants of far superior ancestors."

*Eccles. vii. 29.

12. I have already said that the eminent baronet's mode of literary warfare is not quite knightly. Having thus stated the issues, he straightway chooses for his adversary the deceased Archbishop Whately! This he does upon the plea, that "of the recent supporters of the theory" he opposes, "the late Archbishop of Dublin was amongst the most eminent." Which may be very true; but then, after all, according to the true proverb, "a living dog is better than a dead lion." And it seems not a little absurd to witness the living young Sir John Lubbock thus interrogating with an air of triumph the departed great Church dignitary :

"What kind of monument would the Archbishop accept as proving that the people which made it had been originally savage? that they had raised themselves, and never been influenced by strangers of a superior race?"

Getting no answer, of course, he a little afterwards declares that the late great logician's "argument, if good at all, is good against his own view," and "like an Australian boomerang, which recoils upon its owner." Thus, in a breath, we have Whately's logic quoted at a lamentable discount, and an equally unheard-of character given to the Australian boomerang, which even the Australian savages themselves would only grin at and repudiate. Even savages know better than to use a weapon "which recoils upon its owner"! To give the very lowest and darkest races their due, at least they know how to fight!

ment "

13. Before quitting this incidental point-and since the dead Archbishop cannot reply to his living cross-questioner-let me observe, that in the boomerang we have just such a "monuas proves that the Australian's ancestors were superior to the present race, that is, if we suppose the boomerang to be an Australian invention. For the present race, though they know how to form it by tradition, and know its use, are incapable of inventing anything of the kind or of understanding the principle of its action, which appears to have even puzzled Sir John Lubbock, and which perhaps few of our own mathematicians or scientific mechanics could satisfactorily explain. Either this, or the old aborigines of Australia had former communications with some higher race, from whom they obtained the boomerang (which is said to be recognized upon Egyptian sculptures); and either hypothesis tells utterly against Sir John Lubbock's theory of savage self-advancement. Sir John does not attempt to account for the boomerang upon his own hypothesis. He will never be able to do so; but at least he ought to try, and not be content with misunderstanding its use, and giving it an undeserved character, analogous to his denunciation of Dr. Whately's logic.