creature, and then sat as a retired spectator of the struggle for existence, through which another and then another higher form of being would be evolved, until the mind and the body of man would both have grown out of the successive developments of organic structure. We can not see this now; we can not prove it; but we may expect to be able to see it and to prove it hereafter. The present state of the argument does not furnish very strong grounds for the expectation of what the future is to show. As far as I can discover, the main ground on which the principle of evolution is accepted by those who believe in it, is general reasoning. It is admitted that there are breaks in the organic chain between man and his nearest supposed allies which can not be bridged over by any extinct or living species. The answer that is made to this objection seems to me a very singular specimen of reasoning. It is said that the objection will not appear of much weight to those who believe in the principle of evolution from general reasons. But how is it with those who are inquiring, and who, failing to feel the force of the "general reasons," seek to know what the facts are? When we are told that the breaks in the organic chain "depend merely on the number of related forms which have become extinct," is it asking too much to inquire how it is known that there were such forms and that they have become extinct? Geology, it is fully conceded on its highest authorities, affords us very little aid in arriving at these extinct forms which would connect man with his ape-like progenitors; for, according to Lyell, the discovery of fossil remains of all the vertebrate classes has been a very slow and fortuitous process, and this process has as yet reached no remains connecting man with some extinct ape-like creature.[42] The regions where such remains would be most likely to be found have not yet been searched by geologists. This shows the expectant character of the theory, and how much remains for the future in supplying the facts which are to take the place of "general reasons." But perhaps the most remarkable part of the argument remains to be stated. The breaks in the organic chain of man's supposed descent are admitted to be of frequent occurrence in all parts of the series, "some being wide, sharp, and defined, others less so in various degrees."[43] But these breaks depend merely, it is said, upon the number of related forms that have become extinct, there being as yet no proof, even by fossil remains, that they once existed. Now, the prediction is that at some future time such breaks will be found still more numerous and wider, by a process of extinction that will be observed and recorded; and hence we are not to be disturbed, in looking back into the past, by finding breaks that can not be filled by anything but general reasoning. The passage in which this singular kind of reasoning is expressed by Mr. Darwin deserves to be quoted: