MAN'S ANCESTORS 7 



The strongest opposition to this belief in the lowly 

 ancestry of man is based on religious scruples. All such 

 scruples must be treated with respect, provided we do not 

 flinch from stating what we ourselves believe to be true. 

 Every man who condemns this belief in the evolution of 

 his race should remember that he himself unquestionably 

 has developed from a small jelly-like object, very like some 

 of the simplest creatures now living on earth. From such 

 an apparently simple germ each one of us developed 

 before birth into something shaped like an animal which 

 could not be distinguished from a pig or a sheep when at 

 that same early stage of development. After birth we 

 were for a time far more helpless and far less intelligent 

 than a monkey. As children we had little self-control. 

 Every individual man has gone through a process of de- 

 velopment which in some respects resembles the way in 

 which the race of man has sprung from some lowly kind 

 of living beings. Since no one can deny his own develop- 

 ment, no one thinks of being ashamed of it. Why should 

 we be any more ashamed of the somewhat similar descent 

 of our race from some bygone race of primitive ancestors? 

 Should we not rather rejoice at the thought that we have 

 been so long on the upward march ? 



Granted that all the different kinds of animals which 

 have appeared on earth in the past were descended from 

 some older kinds by the ordinary methods of reproduc- 

 tion, we next must ask what it was which brought about 

 this slow change in their appearances and habits. Here 

 again the story is too long to tell in full. Only a few main 

 points can now be mentioned. 



When food is short the numbers of any kind of animal 

 will be reduced by starvation. When food is plentiful, 

 on the other hand, there will be an exceptional increase 

 in numbers. But, generally speaking, the numbers of any 

 kind of wild animal do not alter greatly as time goes by. 

 Now, when numbers are not changing, and when one 

 couple die, they must be replaced by one other couple, 

 no more and no less. If each couple had two offspring, 



