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

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

but think of God, may not have had an origin without the intervention of chimpanzees, orangs, and gorillas, as the source of their limbs, brains, and beauty. What is it in the human mind that thus denies the law of God written in the heart, which yet constrains men to obey it as 'good citizens, honest men, good husbands, and fathers?'

6

M. Carl Vogt vouches for the fact that he and his friends are such characters, but he concludes his work on man by evidence that he mistakes what kind of men true Christians really are. He says: They require the fear of punishment, the hope of reward in a dreamt-of beyond, to keep in the right-for us suffices the consciousness of being men amongst men, and the acknowledgment of their equal rights. We have no other hope than that of receiving the acknowledgments of our fellow-men; no other fear than that of seeing our human dignity violated-a dignity we value the more since it has been conquered with the greatest labour by us and our ancestors, down to apes.'* A conquest without intention! The greatest labour without a purpose! Equal rights without equal sense of right and wrong! Alas! there is the unreason of a passionate confusion in these unamiable sentences, O Vogt. We and they are here treated as if of diverse genera; but surely the existence of those who fear pain, hope for joy, and dream of a world beyond this, as much demands explanation as that of any who have learned to value the dignity conquered for them by their ancestors down to apes.

For

* P. 469.

if-to be very personal-thou, Carl Vogt, be conscious of thy human rights, with no other hope than that of being acknowledged as a man, and no other fear but lest thy dignity should be offended, this fear and hope being only the natural result of the struggle of ape-nature to acquire human dignity, the hope, fear, and dream of the beyond, charged against the poor pusillanimous party, must have the same simian origin as thy hopes and fears, that is to say, if thy theory of development and apeconquest be true. Thou hast only to prove that such hopes and fears, with the sense of human rights, personal dignity, and moral responsibility, are derived from the ancestry thou claimest, to secure the universal acknowledgment of thine immense genius as a man and a discoverer. But is not the dignity for which thou fearest rather to be called thy self-opinion?

The dignity of human beings would be but of very diminutive value at the best if, when a man stood before his fellows as consciously most worthy of the honour he claimed, he abruptly ended by falling altogether into the grave. In short, the world has never heard of the true dignity of man but in connection with the faith that brought life and immortality to light, and said, 'Honour all men.' God, the faithful Creator, is theirs for ever. So we believe that Vogt, like some others, has perverted science under the blinding influence of prejudice, arising from ignorance of Christianity, which is nothing but love, Divine and human, and is essentially justice, because it cannot endure that men should wrong one another; but while