Page:The Last link.djvu/88

76 quite as much as his great predecessor Lamarck; as were also Huxley and Spencer.

Three times I had the good fortune to visit Darwin at Down, and on each occasion we discussed this fundamental question in complete harmony. I agree with Spencer in the conviction that progressive heredity is an indispensable factor in every true monistic theory of Evolution, and that it is one of its most important elements. If one denies with Weismann the heredity of acquired characters, then it becomes necessary to have recourse to purely mystical qualities of germplasm. I am of the opinion of Spencer, that in that case it would be better to accept a mysterious creation of all the various species as described in the Mosaic account.

If we look at the results of modern anthropogeny from the highest point of view, and compare all its empirical arguments, we are justified in affirming that the descent of man from an extinct Tertiary series of Primates is not a vague hypothesis, but an historical fact.