For at that rate , he said , the Baltas would be quite right in thinking it a fine thing to eat their grandpapas , because they thought it an ugly thing to put them underground . The professor , indeed , went further , and held that no man was forced to believe anything to be true , but what he could see , hear , taste , or handle . He held very strange theories about a good many things . He had even got up once at the British Association , and declared that apes had hippopotamus majors in their brains just as men have . Which was a shocking thing to say ; for , if it were so , what would become of the faith , hope , and charity of immortal millions ? You may think that there are other more important differences between you and an ape , such as being able to speak , and make machines , and know right from wrong , and say your prayers , and other little matters of that kind ; but that is a child 's fancy , my dear . Nothing is to be depended on but the great hippopotamus test . If you have a hippopotamus major in your brain , you are no ape , though you had four hands , no feet , and were more apish than the apes of all aperies . But if a hippopotamus major is ever discovered in one single ape 's brain , nothing will save your great-great-great-great - great-great-great-great-great-great-great-greater-greatest - grandmother from having been an ape too . No , my dear little man ; always remember that the one true , certain , final , and all - important difference between you and an ape is , that you have a hippopotamus major in your brain , and it has none ; and that , therefore , to discover one in its brain will be a very wrong and dangerous thing , at which every one will be very much shocked , as we may suppose they were at the professor . -- Though really , after all , it do n't much matter ; because -- as Lord Dundreary and others would put it -- nobody but men have hippopotamuses in their brains ; so , if a hippopotamus was discovered in an ape 's brain , why it would not be one , you know , but something else . But the professor had gone , I am sorry to say , even further than that ; for he had read at the British Association at Melbourne , Australia , in the year 1999 , a paper which assured every one who found himself the better or wiser for the news , that there were not , never had been , and could not be , any rational or half - rational beings except men , anywhere , anywhen , or anyhow ; that nymphs , satyrs , fauns , inui , dwarfs , trolls , elves , gnomes , fairies , brownies , nixes , wills , kobolds , leprechaunes , cluricaunes , banshees , will-o ' - the-wisps , follets , lutins , magots , goblins , afrits , marids , jinns , ghouls , peris , deevs , angels , archangels , imps , bogies , or worse , were nothing at all , and pure bosh and wind . And he had to get up very early in the morning to prove that , and to eat his breakfast overnight ; but he did it , at least to his own satisfaction . Whereon a certain great divine , and a very clever divine was he , called him a regular Sadducee ; and probably he was quite right . Whereon the professor , in return , called him a regular Pharisee ; and probably he was quite right too . But they did not quarrel in the least ; for , when men are men of the world , hard words run off them like water off a duck 's back . So the professor and the divine met at dinner that evening , and sat together on the sofa afterwards for an hour , and talked over the state of female labour on the antarctic continent -LRB- for nobody talks shop after his claret -RRB- , and each vowed that the other was the best company he ever met in his life . What an advantage it is to be men of the world ! From all which you may guess that the professor was not the least of little Ellie 's opinion . So he gave her a succinct compendium of his famous paper at the British Association , in a form suited for the youthful mind .
But , XXXXX we have gone over his arguments against water-babies once already , which is once too often , we will not repeat them here .
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