The Ascent of Man 163 



stock of mammals. He is solidary with the rest of creation. To 

 quote the closing words of Darwin's Descent of Man: 



We must, however, acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man 

 with all his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for 

 the most debased, with benevolence which extends not only 

 to other men but to the humblest living creature, with his 

 God-like intellect, which has penetrated into the movements 

 and constitution of the solar system with all these exalted 

 powers man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible 

 stamp of his lowly origin. 



We should be clear that this view does not say more than that 

 man sprang from a stock common to him and to the higher apes. 

 Those who are repelled by the idea of man's derivation from a 

 simian type should remember that the theory implies rather more 

 than this, namely, that man is the outcome of a genealogy which 

 has implied many millions of years of experimenting and sifting 

 the groaning and travailing of a whole creation. Speaking of 

 man's mental qualities, Sir Ray Lankester says: "They justify 

 the view that man forms a new departure in the gradual unfold- 

 ing of Nature's predestined plan." In any case, we have to try 

 to square our views with the facts, not the facts with our views, 

 and while one of the facts is that man stands unique and apart, 

 the other is that man is a scion of a progressive simian stock. 

 Naturalists have exposed the pit whence man has been digged 

 and the rock whence he has been hewn, but it is surely a heart- 

 ening encouragement to know that it is an ascent, not a 

 descent, that we have behind us. There is wisdom in Pascal's 

 maxim: 



It is dangerous to show man too plainly how like he is to the 

 animals, without, at the same time, reminding him of his 

 greatness. It is equally unwise to impress him with his 

 greatness and not with his lowliness. It is worse to leave 

 him in ignorance of both. But it is very profitable to recog- 

 nise the two facts. 



