8 INTRODUCTION 



life itself; thus we arrive at the theory of trans- 

 formation, the only theory which seems capable of 

 solving satisfactorily the problem of the origin of all 

 living things which now people the earth. 



That the different species were bred one from the 

 other is not merely a deduction based on a few facts, 

 for facts can be either disputed or interpreted differ- 

 ently, but a conception which imposes itself on our 

 mind as the only acceptable one, as soon as we reject 

 the doctrine of a supernatural act of creation. 



After winning their point as to the origin of 

 the animal and plant species, evolutionists took 

 another step forward and busied themselves with the 

 origin of man. In the mind of the primitive savage, 

 man is not dissociated from the world; everything is 

 considered from the point of view of man, nature is 

 peopled with beings similar to man and leading a 

 life similar to his life ; the origin of the human race is 

 not any more mysterious than the origin of nature 

 herself. 



At a later stage of development, subtler religious 

 conceptions and a metaphysical philosophy open a 

 chasm between nature and man. Man's destiny rises 

 far above all other natural phenomena, far beyond the 

 reach of the sciences dealing with them. This chasm 

 was never bridged until the modern idea of transmu- 

 tation compelled us to extend its deductions to man, 

 to embrace in one and the same generalisation man 



