2 THE EVOLUTION OF MAN. 



tion) and Adaptation (natrition). The individual organism reproduces in 

 the rapid and short course of its own evolution the most important of the 

 changes in form through which its ancestors, according to laws of Heredity 

 and Adaptation, have passed in the slow and long coarse of their palseonto- 

 logical evolution." — Haeckel's Generelle Morphologie (1866). 



The natural phenomena of the evolutionary history of man 

 claim an entirely peculiar place in the wide range of 

 the scientific study of nature. There is surely no subject 

 of scientific investigation touching man more closel}^, or in 

 the knowledge of which he is more deeply concerned, than 

 the human organism itself ; and of all the various brandies 

 of the science of man, or anthropology, the history of 

 his natural evolution should excite his highest interest. 

 For it affords a key for the solution of the greatest of those 

 problems at which human science is striving. The greatest 

 problems with which human science is occupied — the inquiry 

 into the true nature of man, or, as it is called, the question 

 of " Man's Place in Nature," which deals with the past 

 and primitive history, the present condition, and future 

 of Man — are all most directly and intimately linked to this 

 branch of scientific research, which is called The History 

 of the Evolution of Man, or briefly, " Anthropogeny." ^ 

 It is, however, a most astonishing but incontestable fact, 

 that the history of the evolution of man as yet constitutes 

 no part of general education. Indeed, our so-called " edu- 

 cated classes " are to this day in total ignorance of the 

 most important circumstances and the most remarkable 

 phenomena which Anthropogeny has brought to light. 



In corroboration of this most astounding fact, I will 

 only mention that most " educated people " do not even 

 know that each human individual is developed from an 

 egg, and that this egg is a simple cell, like that of any 



