has corrected the earlier erroneous nomenclature of Natural History and
has introduced a more correct classification. He has greatly simplified
the work of the Creator of the world. Of that merit no one will deprive
him, and it is a great merit. And those who believed that every species
required its own act of creation, and had to be finished by the Creator
separately (as was the established opinion in England, and still is in
some places), cannot be grateful enough to Darwin for having given them a
simpler and worthier idea of the origin of the earth and of its animal and
vegetable kingdoms.

"But now comes Mr. Herbert Spencer and tells us, 'We have to deal with man
as a product of evolution, with society as a product of evolution, and
with moral phenomena as products of evolution.' That sounds splendid, but
every one who does not quite ignore the past, knows that evolution or
development is neither anything very new or very useful. Formerly we used
simply to say the tree grows, the child develops, and this was
metaphorically transferred to society, the state, science, and religion.
The study of this development was called history, and occasionally genetic
or pragmatic history; but instead of talking as we do now of evolution
with imperceptible transitions, it was these transitions which industrious
and honest investigators formerly sought to observe. They aimed at
learning to know the men, and the events, which marked a decided step in
advance in the history of society, or in the history of morals. This
required painstaking effort, but the result obtained was quite different
from the modern view, in which everything is evolved, and, what is the
worst, by imperceptible degrees. In Natural History this is otherwise; in
it the term 'evolution,' or 'growth,' may be correctly applied, because no
one really has ever seen or heard the grass grow, and no one has ever
observed the once generally accepted transition from a reptile to a bird.
In this we must doubtless admit imperceptible transitions. Yet even in
this we must not go beyond the facts; and if a man like Virchow assures us
that the intermediate stages between man and any sort of animal have never
been found to this day, then in spite of all storms we shall probably have
to rest there. But I go still farther. Even supposing, say I, that there
is an imperceptible transition from the Pithecanthropos to man, affecting
his thigh, his skull, his brain, his entire body, have