vii THE ANTIQUITY AND ORIGIN OF MAN 419 



But the question of the mere "Antiquity of Man" 

 almost sank into insignificance at a very early period of 

 the inquiry, in comparison with the far more momentous 

 and more exciting problem of the development of man from 

 some lower animal form, which the theories of Mr. Darwin 

 and of Mr. Herbert Spencer soon showed to be inseparably 

 bound up with it. This has been, and to some extent still 

 is, the subject of fierce conflict ; but the controversy as to the 

 fact of such development is now almost at an end, since one 

 of the most talented representatives of Catholic theology, 

 and an anatomist of high standing Professor Mivart fully 

 adopts it as regards physical structure, reserving his opposi- 

 tion for those parts of the theory which would deduce man's 

 whole intellectual and moral nature from the same source and 

 by a similar mode of development. 



Never, perhaps, in the whole history of science or philo- 

 sophy has so great a revolution in thought and opinion been 

 effected as in the twelve years from 1859 to 1871, the 

 respective dates of publication of Mr. Darwin's Origin of 

 Species and Descent of Man. Up to the commencement 

 of this period the belief in the independent creation or 

 origin of the species of animals and plants, and the very 

 recent appearance of man upon the earth, were, practically, 

 universal. Long before the end of it these two beliefs had 

 utterly disappeared, not only in the scientific world, but 

 almost equally so among the literary and educated classes 

 generally. The belief in the independent origin of man held 

 its ground somewhat longer; but the publication of Mr. 

 Darwin's great work gave even that its deathblow, for hardly 

 any one capable of judging of the evidence now doubts the 

 derivative nature of man's bodily structure as a whole, 

 although many believe that his mind, and even some of his 

 physical characteristics, may be due to the action of other 

 forces than have acted in the case of the lower animals. 



We need hardly be surprised, under these circumstances, 

 if there has been a tendency among men of science to pass 

 from one extreme to the other ; from a profession (so few 

 years ago) of total ignorance as to the mode of origin of all 

 living things, to a claim to almost complete knowledge of the 

 whole progress of the universe, from the first speck of living 



