THE DOGMA OF EVOLUTION 



these things are laid down for us to believe, but also 

 the causes of the changes from one type to another are 

 described as matters of scientific verity; even obscure 

 and insignificant habits of men are traced back to the 

 prehistoric traits of our animal forefathers. For ex- 

 ample, a baby clings to the finger of its parent be- 

 cause one of its progenitors, as a monkey, clung to the 

 branch of a tree, or, as others hold, we have a curved 

 back and a tottering walk because we have descended 

 from monkeys which were inhabitants of treeless 

 plains, and we have not yet learned to move upright. 

 The biological history which thu« not only marks the 

 gigantic steps of time but also descends to a multi- 

 tude of minute facts and incidents, which occurred 

 millions of years before man with his records inhab- 

 ited the earth, should have a certain and adequate 

 basis of fact. Does this ground-work of observation 

 and fact exist ■? 



The biographical history of contemporaneous men 

 is a much cultivated art or science, whichever one may 

 choose to call it. The biographer has access to corre- 

 spondence; he may have known personally the sub- 

 ject of the essay or, at least, he can learn all the facts 

 which acquaintances and friends may know. The sub- 

 ject may have been a Napoleon or a Disraeli on whom 

 the attention of the world has been centred, and yet 

 how few of the continuous thoughts and actions of 

 his short life can be deciphered, and how little of the 

 real man can be transferred to the pages of the long- 



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