on science of that

scale. it is easy to lose one's place Mr. Huxley says that 'thoughtful

and find no good. 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.'

The Past of man indicated in this quotation is, alas! lost in the unknown history of 'the lowly stock whence he sprung,' and how he can find the best evidence of the splendour of his capacities' where he never was and where there is no light, it would exhaust a long Future to show. "The blinding influence of traditional prejudice' of which Professor Huxley complains is that which began with a belief in man's original nobility by creative patent; and possibly after all, the influence of a prejudice in favour of such a faith is not nearly so blinding as a prejudice in favour of that mere fancy which would seek enlightenment in a Past nowhere discovered and a Future nowhere foretold. If Nature does not inform us that man was created in direct correspondence with his Maker, neither does she show us how such beings as men could spring out of an anthropoid endeavour after higher qualities. Nature being silent on that point is also questioned in vain as to how it came to pass that apes having begotten men, these men not only invented a tradition of their immediate divine

* Huxley's Man's Place in Nature, p. 111.

origin but that the best of their race were also found so unreasonable as to become prejudiced in favour of that tradition.

"The reasonable ground of faith in man's attainment of a nobler future,' on which Professor Huxley lays especial stress, is, however, of so restricted a character that men in general have but the smallest possible chance of ever getting a footing upon it, which, if it be a more reasonable ground of faith than Christianity affords us, would be a very great loss to those who cannot reach it, seeing that even Christian faith and hope are, to those who feel them, sources of elevated joy as well as strong stimulants to effort for the improvement of their own moral character and that of all whom they can influence. But this Huxleyan ground of faith exists only in the minds of a few natural philosophers whose knowledge of anatomy is sufficient to enable them to suspect the possibility that men as they are have attained their present position in virtue of a power imposed by nature upon apes of past ages to beget mankind with a capacity to go on improving without any known limit. It is evident that as this peculiar teaching of anatomy, together with a bias thus to interpret its teaching, is essential to the attainment of the said reasonable ground of faith there will be but few to find it, unless on very confused hearsay, thus affording small reason for faith of any kind concerning a man's own nobler Future.

But as we are told of the blinding influence of traditional prejudice, we are thereby warned against

being blinded by the influence of a prejudice which may be equally injurious without the advantage of any tradition in its favour. What, then, has induced Mr. Huxley to rely on his power so to understand the nature of limbs and brains as thereby to possess a reasonable ground of faith in his own attainment of a nobler Future? How does he discover the best evidences of the splendour of his capacity'? But as he does not and cannot mean his own nobler Future and his own splendour of capacity, whose does he mean? If he refer to a higher development of ape-nature in a race of men yet to come what is the present race the better for his private anatomical interpretations? We fear he has undertaken his researches and assumed his character of seer and prophet on the ground of a prejudice against Christianity, which has not only blinded him to the divine glory of its doctrines and the clearness of its evidences, but, what is worse, also deprived him of a faith and a hope very good to live and die on, and conducted him to a faith of no use to himself nor to any who may happen to believe him.

Mr. Darwin and Mr. Huxley are followed by M. Carl Vogt, a new and superior light on the matter of ape-nature and its proclivity to generate human beings. Equally high in science, more exact in the measurement of bones, and confident beyond measure in his own 'if,' 'but,' and 'perhaps,' Carl Vogt is most candid and profound in his expression of hatred to Christianity, as he understands it. In order to rebut the statement of Professor Rudiger Wagner that there is nothing

6

more certain, according to Darwin's theory, than the inference that both ape and man had for their single progenitor a form intermediate between ape and man,” Carl Vogt proceeds to assert that the inference is solely Wagner's: As far as I know, no Darwinist has either raised that question or drawn the inference, for the simple reason that it neither accords with the facts nor their consequences.'† He then, in fear of being supposed capable of believing in a single origin of man, indicates that The ape-type does not culminate in one but in three athropoid apes which belong to at least different genera.' 'This much is certain,' he says, that each of these anthropoid apes has its peculiar character by which it approaches man: the chimpanzee, by the cranial and dental structure; the orang, by its cerebral structure; the gorilla, by the structure of its extremities.' The upshot of the argument is this: Let us imagine the three anthropoid apes continued to the human type-which they do not reach and perhaps never will reach; we shall see developed from the three parallel series of apes, three different primary races of mankind, two dolicho-cephalic races descended from the gorilla and chimpanzee, and one brachy-cephalic descended from the orang: that descended from the gorilla is, perhaps, distinguished by the development of the teeth and chest ; that descended from the orang by the length of the arms and light-red hair; and that issued from the chimpanzee

* Lectures on Man, by C. Vogt, p. 463.

† Still, as the translator of Vogt's work shows, Vogt is mistaken, since there are Darwinist advocates of unity.—Ibid., p. 464.

by black colour, slender bones, and the less massive jaws.'* What a mixed breed of apes must have met from abroad to constitute Englishmen with such a variety of skull and complexion! He adds: If in the different regions of the globe anthropoid apes may issue from different stocks, we cannot see why these different stocks should be denied the further development into the human type, and that only one stock should possess this privilege; in short, we cannot see why American races of man may not be derived from American apes, negroes from African apes, or Negritos, perhaps, from Asiatic apes !'†

Anatomists and physiologists who can reason on facts, as well as observe them, have not yet in this manner attempted to account for the diversities of mankind; and, therefore, as Carl Vogt's argument is founded on imagination, with the aid of if and perhaps, these words, weak as they are, may be equally well employed to overthrow what is built on so slender a basis. While, however, we desire to give M. Vogt all honour for his patient labour as an anatomist, and for the candid boldness with which he teaches his pupils the mysteries of his miserable creed, we cannot but deplore the aptitude he evinces to misinterpret the facts of human history, and the utter repugnance he has so strenuously exhibited to any idea supposed to be of divine origin, except through development from apes. The blindness of prejudice against Christianity is too clearly the cause of his inability to see why men, who cannot + Ibid., p. 466.

* Ibid., p 465.