66 NOTES. 



B. 



To many persons the conclusion that man is the 

 naturally modified descendant of ape-like ancestors 

 appears to be destructive of the belief in an immortal 

 soul, and in the teachings of Christianity ; and ac- 

 cordingly they either reject Darwinism altogether, 

 or claim for man a special exemption from the mode 

 of origin admitted for other animals. 



It seems worth while, in order to secure a calm 



and unprejudiced consideration for the teachings of 



Darwinism, to point out to such persons that, as a 



matter of fact, whatever views we may hold with 



regard to a soul and the Christian doctrines, they 



cannot be in the smallest degree affected by the 



admission that man has been derived from ape-like 



ancestors by a process of natural selection, so long 



as the demonstrable fact, not denied by any sane 



person, is admitted, namely, that every individual 



man grows by a process of natural modification from 



a homogeneous egg-cell or corpuscle. Assuredly it 



cannot lower our conception of man's dignity if we 



