TIME AND CHANGE 



It is easy to inject into man s natural histoiy a 

 supernatural element, as nearly all biologists and 

 anthropologists before Darwin s time did, and as 

 many serious people still do. It is too easy, in fact, 

 and the temptation to do so is great. It makes short 

 work of the problem of man s origin, and saves a 

 deal of trouble. But this method is more and more 

 discredited, and the younger biologists and natural 

 philosophers accept the zoological conception of 

 man, which links him with all the lower forms, and 

 proceed to work from that. 



When we have taken the first step in trying to 

 solve the problem of man s origin, where can we 

 stop ? Can we find any point in his history where we 

 can say, Here his natural history ends, and his su 

 pernatural history begins ? Does his natural history 

 end with the pre-glacial man, with the cave man, or 

 the river-drift man, with the low-browed, long- jawed 

 fossil man of Java, Pithecanthropus erectus, de 

 scribed by Du Bois ? Where shall we stop on his 

 trail ? I had almost said &quot;step on his tail,&quot; for we 

 undoubtedly, if we go back far enough, come to a 

 time when man had a tail. Every unborn child at a 

 certain stage of its development still has a tail, as it 

 also has a coat of hair and a hand-like foot. But 

 could we stop with the tailed man the manlike 

 ape, or the apelike man ? Did his Creator start him 

 with this appendage, or was it a later suffix of his 

 own invention ? 



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