PRIMITIVE MAN. 319 



down at the feet of a system of debased metaphysics. 

 As redeeming features in all this, are the careful 

 study of varietal forms, and the inquiries as to the 

 limits of species, which have sprung from these dis- 

 cussions, and the harvest of which will be reaped by 

 the true naturalists of the future. 



Thus these theories as to the origin of men and 

 animals and plants are full of present significance, 

 and may be studied with profit by all ; and in no part 

 of their applications more usefully than in that which 

 relates to man. Let us then inquire, 1. What is 

 implied in the idea of evolution as applied to man ? 

 2. What is implied in the idea of creation ? 3. How 

 these several views accord with what we actually know 

 as the result of scientific investigation ? The first and 

 second of these questions may well occupy the whole 

 of this chapter, and we shall be able merely to glance 

 at their leading aspects. In doing so, it may be well 

 first to place before us in general terms the several 

 alternatives which evolutionists offer, as to the mode in 

 which the honour of an origin from apes or ape-like 

 animals can be granted to us, along with the opposite 

 view as to the independent origin of man which have 

 been maintained either on scientific or scriptural 

 grounds. 



All the evolutionist theories of the origin of man 

 depend primarily on the possibility of his having 

 been produced from some of the animals more closely 

 allied to him, by the causes now in operation which 

 lead to varietal forms, or by similar causes which have 



