INTRODUCTION. 

 I. 



EVOLUTION IN GENERAL. 



The last romance of Science, the most daring it has 

 ever tried to pen, is the Story of the Ascent of Man. 

 Withheld from all the wistful eyes that have gone be- 

 fore, whose reverent ignorance forbade their wisest 

 minds to ask to see it, this final volume of Natural 

 History has begun to open with our century's close. 

 In the monographs of His and Minot, the Embryology 

 of Man has already received a just expression ; Darwin 

 and Haeckel have traced the origin of the Animal- 

 Body; the researches of Romanes mark a beginning 

 with the Evolution of Mind ; Herbert Spencer has 

 elaborated theories of the development of Morals ; 

 Edward Caird of the Evolution of Religion. Supple- 

 menting the contributions of these authorities, verify 

 ing, criticising, combating, rebutting, there works a 

 multitude of others who have devoted their lives to 

 the same rich problems, and already every chapter of 

 the bewildering story has found its editors. 



Yet, singular though the omission may seem, no 

 connected outline of this £reat drama has yet been 



