animal forms, some of the
varieties eventually evolved into apes and orangoutangs, to stop there
and die out like hosts of other forms now extinct. But from some
strongly individualized variety sprang, with more rapid and advancing
growth, the primitive man, who has, under complex influences,
differentiated into the so-called races of mankind. We talk of man as
being something infinitely above all animals. There is a vast difference
between the highest and lowest species of the genus _homo_. Were the
race confined to those lowest species, we imagine that European and
American pride of nature would go before a grievous fall. These
constantly succeeding changes are supposed to have taken place during
the whole time that this earth has been fitted for animal life,--a
period of time so long that the human mind is unable to grasp it.

One objection to this theory, strongly insisted on, is the absence of
any evidence of connecting links between man and the lower animals, or
between the strongly defined demarcations of the animal orders. The
answer to this is, that little is known of the whole earth: much of it
is submerged now that was once above the waters and served for a
dwelling-place for organized beings. A great deal is known of the
sequence of forms which have been unearthed from their stony sepulchres.
The negative evidence is as weighty as the positive. Besides this,
millions of air-breathing animals die, without leaving anything behind
them to mark their existence. Preyed upon by other animals, devoured at
their death by myriads of insects, exposed to the action of destructive
chemical agents, they soon decay, and leave no trace behind. Who ever
finds the dead bodies of the thousands of animals and birds which perish
yearly? Who finds the remains of the familiar creatures which frequent
our woods and meadows? For one which is accidentally buried so as to
resist the destructive forces of air and water, millions are resolved
into their primitive elements, and are annihilated as structural forms.
And yet, because in portions of the vast deposits of rock the remains of
certain ancient forms are discovered, it is asked that the Darwinians
should furnish a perfect progressive sequence of fossils to elucidate
the theory, and prove it beyond dispute. Recent discoveries have brought
to light human remains in caves, where they are associated with bones of
extinct animals. That they are of very ancient origin is beyond
doubt,