human evolution is a subject that falls within the scope of 

 zoological investigation, unless indeed it can be shown that 

 the human species is exempt from the control of those 

 laws of nature that hold sway over the animate world 

 elsewhere, unless something can be found which excludes 

 man from the animal kingdom. Notwithstanding the most 

 prolonged search not only by zoologists but as well by those 

 who have been unfriendly to the doctrine of descent, the 

 study of man and of men has revealed nothing essentially 

 unique. What is known of the anatomy, development and 

 fossil relations of man is summarized in the statement that 

 he belongs to the genus and species Homo sapiens, placed 

 with the apes and some other forms in the order primates 

 because of agreement in certain peculiar details. The 

 primates agree with the carnivora, rodents and many other 

 orders in the characteristics of the class mammalia, which 

 in turn is only a branch of the limb vertebrata or chordata, 

 which also bears the avaian, reptilian, amphibian and fish 

 branches. And all the vertebrates including man agree 

 with the varied groups of invertebrates in their cellular 

 constitution and in the similar protoplasmic basis of life. 

 As in these structural respects, so in physiological activi- 

 ties and in environmental relations the human species 

 proves more surely with increased knowledge to be only 

 one of the terms in the extensive series of animals. In- 

 deed, the scientific monism of Haeckel and Clifford ven- 

 tures to assert that man and all other living creatures are 

 one with the mind-stuff of the inorganic world and this, 

 I believe, is only the logical extension of the genetic and 

 mechanistic hypotheses. However this may be, science 

 holds that human structure is animal structure, and that 

 human lives are biological phenomena. 



Man is structurally inferior in many respects to some 

 of his zoological relatives he is a degenerate, indeed, in 

 many parts of the alimentary, muscular and skeletal sys- 



27 



