We have next to consider certain points connected with the theory of the relationship between man and the anthropoid apes. It is hardly necessary for me to say, perhaps, that in thus dealing with a subject requiring for its independent investigation the life-long study of departments of science which are outside those in which I have taken special interest, I am not pretending to advance my opinion as of weight in matters as yet undetermined by zoologists. But it has always seemed to me, that when those who have made special study of a subject collect and publish the result of their researches, and a body of evidence is thus made available for the general body scientific, the facts can be advantageously considered by students of other branches of science, so only that, in leaving for a while their own subject, they do not depart from the true scientific method, and that they are specially careful to distinguish what has been really ascertained from what is only surmised with a greater or less degree of probability.
In the first place, then, I would call attention to some very common mistakes respecting the Darwinian theory of the Descent of Man. I do not refer here to ordinary misconceptions respecting the theory of natural selection. To say the truth, those who have not passed beyond _this_ stage of error,—those who still confound the theory of natural selection with the Lamarckian and other theories (or rather hypotheses[38]) of evolution,—are not as yet in a position to deal with our present subject, and may be left out of consideration.
The errors to which I refer are in the main included in the following statement. It is supposed by many, perhaps by most, that according to Darwin man is descended from one or other of the races of anthropoid apes; and that the various orders and sub-orders of apes and monkeys at present existing can be arranged in a series gradually approaching more and more nearly to man, and indicating the various steps (or some of them, for gaps exist in the series) by which man was developed. Nothing can be plainer, however, than Darwin’s contradiction of this genealogy for the human races. Not only does he not for a moment countenance the belief that the present races of monkeys and apes can be arranged in a series gradually approximating more and more nearly to man, not only does he reject the belief that man is descended from any present existing anthropoid ape, but he even denies that the progenitor of man resembled any known ape. “We must not fall into the error of supposing,” he says, “that the early progenitor of the whole simian stock, including man, was identical with, or even closely resembled, any existing ape or monkey.”