Note 39 — THE GORILLA AND OTHER APES.

I find it somewhat difficult to understand clearly Mr. Mivart’s own position with reference to the general theory of evolution. He certainly is an evolutionist, and as certainly he considers natural selection combined with the tendency to variation (as ordinarily understood) insufficient to account for the existence of the various forms of animal and vegetable existence. He supplies the missing factor in “an innate law imposed on nature, by which new and definite species, under definite conditions, emerged from a latent and potential being into actual and manifest existence;” and, so far as can be judged, he considers that the origin of man himself is an instance of the operation of this law.