PRIMITIVE MA.N. «}83 



designated, since it subverted in the case of man tlie 

 previous regular operation of natural selection, and 

 introduced all that debasing superstition, priestly 

 domination, and religious controversy which have 

 been among the chief curses of our race, and which 

 are doubly accursed if, as the evolutionist believes, 

 they are not the ruins of something nobler and holier, 

 but tlie mere gratuitous, vain, and useless imaginings 

 of a creature who should have been content to eat and 

 drink and die, without hope or fear, like the brutes 

 from which he sprang. 



These are at present our alternative sketches : the 

 genesis of theism, and the genesis of evolution. After 

 the argument in previous pages, it is unnecessary 

 here to discuss their relative degrees of probability. 

 If we believe in a personal spiritual Creator, the first 

 becomes easy and natural, as it is also that which best 

 accords with history and tradition. If, on the con- 

 trary, we reject all these, and accept as natural laws 

 the postulates of the evolutionists which we have 

 already discussed, we may become believers in the 

 latter. The only remaining point is to inquire as to 

 which explains best the actual facts of humanity as we 

 find them. This is a view of which much has been 

 made by evolutionists, and it therefore merits consider- 

 ation. But it is too extensive to be fully treated of 

 here, and I must content myself with a few illustra- 

 tions of the failure of the theory of derivation to 

 explain some of the most important features presented 

 by even the ruder races of men. 



