INTRODUCTION 



IT is not my purpose to argue in favor of the theory of 

 evolution as opposed to the theory of special creation. The 

 time is past when such discussion would be profitable. It is 

 rather my wish to set forth in brief outline the evolution 

 theory and describe some of the phenomena which it 

 explains, and then to discuss the relation of mankind to 

 evolution. 



The biological sciences have been the last to come to a 

 position of dignity as orderly, self-consistent explanations 

 of phenomena. Supernaturalism and anthropomorphic inter- 

 pretations once prevailed in the whole domain now claimed 

 by natural science. Gradually the so-called physical sciences 

 were emancipated from the superstitions that oppressed 

 them. Galileo, Kepler, Newton, and the more modern 

 physicists and chemists have shown that the phenomena of 

 nature are orderly and self-dependent, that the explanation 

 of natural phenomena is to be sought in other natural phe- 

 nomena. The stellar systems of the universe are held in 

 their proper places by that mutual influence they exert upon 

 one another which we call gravitation. Our own sun moves 



O 



along its appointed daily course not because of the guiding 

 reins of the charioteer Apollo, but under the control of this 

 same omnipresent force, gravitation. The mysteries of chem- 

 istry were not so much in the thought of men as were the 

 more patent physical phenomena, so we find less of supersti- 



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