112 A Century of Science 



originated that man occupies certainly just as ex 

 ceptional a position as before, if he is the terminal 

 in a long series of evolutionary events. If at the 

 end of the long history of evolution comes man, if 

 this whole secular process has been going on to 

 produce this supreme object, it does not much mat 

 ter what kind of a cosmical body he lives on. He 

 is put back into the old position of theological im 

 portance, and in a much more intelligent way than 

 in the old days when he was supposed to occupy 

 the centre of the universe. We are enabled to say 

 that while there is no doubt of the evolutionary 

 process going on throughout countless ages which 

 we know nothing about, yet in the one case where 

 it is brought home to us we spell out an intelligible 

 story, and we do find things working along up to 

 man as a terminal fact in the whole process. This 

 is indeed a consistent conclusion from Wallace s 

 suggestion that natural selection, in working to 

 ward the genesis of man, began to follow a new 

 path and make psychical changes instead of physi 

 cal changes. Obviously, here you are started upon 

 a new chapter in the history of the universe. It is 

 no longer going to be necessary to shape new limbs, 

 and to thicken the skin and make new growths of 

 hair, when man has learned how to build a fire, 

 when he can take some other animal s hide and 



