CHAPTER I 

 FACTS AND FACTORS OF DEVELOPMENT 



INTRODUCTION 



Man's Place in Nature. One of the greatest results of the doc- 

 trine of organic evolution has been the determination of man's 

 place in nature. For many centuries it has been known that in 

 bodily structure man is an animal ; that he is born, nourished and 

 developed, that he matures, reproduces and dies just as does the 

 humblest animal or plant. For centuries it has been known that 

 man belongs to that group of animals which have backbones, the 

 vertebrates ; to that class which have hair and suckle their young, 

 the mammals, and to that order which have grasping hands, flat 

 nails, and thoracic mammae, the primates, a group which includes 

 also the monkeys and apes. But as long as it was supposed that 

 every species was distinct in its origin from every other one, and 

 that each arose by a special divine fiat, it was possible to main- 

 tain that man was absolutely distinct from the rest of the animal 

 world and that he had no kinship to the beasts, though undoubt- 

 edly he was made in their bodily image. But with the establish- 

 ment of the doctrine of organic evolution this resemblance be- 

 tween man and the lower animals has come to have a new sig- 

 nificance. The almost universal acceptance of this doctrine by 

 scientific men, the many undoubted resemblances between man 

 and the lower animals, and the discovery of the remains of lower 

 types of man, real "missing links," have inevitably led to the 

 conclusion that man also is a product of evolution, that he is a 

 part of the great world of living things and not a being who 

 stands apart in solitary grandeur in some isolated sphere. 



Oneness of All Life But wholly aside from the doctrine of 



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