152 DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION 



To the zoologist it seems strange that so many are 

 opposed to a scientific inquiry into the facts of human 

 evolution, and to the conclusions established by such 

 an inquiry, — though, to be sure, this opposition is 

 directly proportional to ignorance or misunderstanding 

 of the nature and purpose of scientific investigation and 

 of human evolution. The naturalist comes to view 

 our species as a kind of animal, and as a single one of 

 the hundreds of thousands of known forms of life; 

 thus the question of human origin is but a small part 

 of organic evolution, which is itself only an episode in 

 the great sweep of cosmic evolution, endless in past 

 time and in the future. Were we some other order of 

 beings, and not men, human evolution would appear to 

 us in its proper scientific proportions, namely, as a 

 minute fraction of the whole progress of the world. 



While the foregoing statements are true, it is never- 

 theless right that a close study should be made of the 

 particular case of mankind. No doubt much of the 

 naturalist's interest in nature at large is due to his 

 conviction that the laws revealed by the organisms of a 

 lower sphere must hold true for man, and may explain 

 many things that cannot be so clearly discerned when 

 only the highest type is the subject of investigation. 

 It is only too evident that little more than a general 

 outline can be given of the wide subject or group of 

 subjects included under the head of human evolution. 

 We must divide the subject logically into parts, so that 

 each one may be taken up without being complicated 

 by questions relating to topics of another category, 

 although the findings in any one department must 

 surely be of importance for comparison with the results 



