THE ORIGIN OF MAN 



is not an iota of evidence. It is not only inher- 

 ently untenable, as palpably depending not on 

 facts but on what Professor William James calls 

 the "will to believe," but it is compelled to ig- 

 nore the inseparable relation between man's mental 

 characters and his physical structure, while it can 

 only be held by those who are totally ignorant of 

 the most elementary facts of comparative psy- 

 chology. Nevertheless, it is plain that this doc- 

 trine of the independent and mystic origin of the 

 human mind will continue to be supported when 

 none but such as believe in the flatness of the 

 earth and the like will be found to support the 

 theory of the special creation of man's body. Thus 

 we find the position of Wallace to be the furthest 

 that is taken by the most enlightened theologians 

 of to-day, and, indeed, it is evident that no theo- 

 logian can possibly afford to go further. But 

 whoso cares to consider the now undisputed origin 

 of the human body, and the fact that the mind of 

 each individual human being is developed in asso- 

 ciation with the development of a speck of proto- 

 plasm barely visible to the naked eye, will scarcely 

 be found ranged among the few who keep the flag 

 of special creation still flying in this last stronghold 

 a castle in the air, if ever there was one. 



Given, then, that man's past is simian, what of 

 his future? In the next chapter we must con- 

 sider the possibility that "the best is yet to be." 



