# Darwin also acknowledged an immense human difference

Commentary on Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton.

On [CH09.P004](https://glosses.org/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH09.P004/#char=3219,3310): "the chasm between man and other creatures may have a natural explanation, but it is a chasm"

An immense difference between human and animal capacities was already part of Darwin's argument, rather than a fact Darwin had overlooked. *The Descent of Man* first appeared in 1871; the inspected York University transcription identifies itself as the second edition (1874). Chapter III opens by acknowledging the enormous mental interval between humans and apes before arguing for continuity in the underlying faculties. Darwin's argument therefore does not require apes to produce human civilisation.

The closing summary of chapter IV makes the point especially clear. Darwin imagines an ape conceding its inability to pursue mathematics, metaphysics or reflection on God. He nevertheless argues that shared capacities, including memory, curiosity and reasoning, make the difference one of degree, and suggests that distinctively human achievements may emerge through the development of language and other faculties. Chesterton's catalogue of absent animal arts vividly states a phenomenon that a naturalistic explanation must address; by itself it does not refute Darwin's proposed explanation.

Chesterton's own concession that the chasm might have a natural explanation matters here. His immediate target is the dismissive inference from bodily resemblance to human insignificance or materialism. He reverses the direction of attention: resemblance makes human divergence more puzzling. That is a philosophical challenge about the significance of human life, stronger than the suggestion that biology simply failed to notice the difference. The paragraph leaves open whether a sufficiently developed biology could explain what Chesterton asks religion to interpret.

## Sources

- [Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, second edition (1874), chapter III](https://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Darwin/Descent/descent3.htm), Opening paragraphs, beginning 'We have seen in the last two chapters'; statement of the chapter's object
- [Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, second edition (1874), chapter IV](https://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Darwin/Descent/descent4.htm), Concluding section 'Summary of the last two Chapters', from the imagined ape through discussion of language and gradual evolution

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