[Footnote 63: We suppose he has a right to call himself agnostic as being a disciple of Professor Huxley, who, we believe, started or revived the term in our own times. Of course he is also a dogmatic materialist, and by no means an "agnostic" in the wider sense of general scepticism.]
[Footnote 64: M.S. 171.]
[Footnote 65: "Not only have no missing links been discovered, but the oldest known human skulls and skeletons, which date from the glacial period and are probably at least one hundred thousand years old, show no very decided approximation towards any such pre-human type. On the contrary," &c. (M.S. 181.) He replies (H.O. 373) that "five hundred thousand years prior to these men of Spy and Neanderthal, the human race has existed in higher physical perfection, nearer to the existing type of modern man," (Cf. P.F. 158.)]
[Footnote 66: M.S. 112, 114.]
[Footnote 67: P.F. 154.]
[Footnote 68: P.F. 154.]
[Footnote 69: M.S. 175.]
[Footnote 70: The horse "may be taken as the typical instance of descent by progressive specialization. What is a horse? It is essentially an animal specialized for … the rapid progression of a bulky body over plains or deserts" it is evident that one strong and long toe, protected by a solid hoof, was more serviceable than four short and weak toes." [But why should it gallop more than other animals; or why on the hard ground in the deserts and plains; or would not four strong and long toes have been better than one?] "The coalescence of the toes is the fundamental fact in the progress … by which the primitive bunodont was converted into the modern horse." But we thought evolution was a change from the homogeneous, incoherent to the heterogeneous and coherent: surely the change from five toes to one must have been a misfortune on the whole, if the flexibility of the human hand accounts for man's intellect. The advantages of a convenient gallop over occasional oases of hard ground in the desert would hardly balance that of being able to climb trees. (P.F. 143.)]
[Footnote 71: Cf. P.F. 151.]
[Footnote 72: M.S. 180.]