PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 



the whole history of the World, and in which we may well 

 deem it an honour to take part, no better ally than Anthro- 

 pogeny can, it seems to me, be brought to the assistance 

 of struggling truth. The history of evolution is the heavy 

 artillery in the struggle for truth. Whole ranks of dualistic 

 sophisms fall before the monistic philosophy, as before the 

 chain shot of artillery, and the proud structure of the 

 Roman hierarchy, that mighty stronghold of infallible 

 dogmatism, falls like a house of cards. Whole libraries 

 of church wisdom and false philosophy melt away as soon 

 as they are seen in the light afforded by the history of 

 evolution. The church militant itself furnishes the most 

 striking evidences of this, for it never ceases to give the 

 lie to the plain facts of human germ-history, condemning 

 them as "diabolical inventions of materialism." In so 

 doing it gives the most brilliant witness that it recognizes 

 as unavoidable the conclusions which we have drawn from 

 these facts as to tribal history, as to the true causes of 

 these facts. 



In order to render these little known facts of germ- 

 history and their causal explanation by tribal history 

 accessible to as wide a circle of educated readers as pos- 

 sible, I have followed the same course as that which 

 I adopted, six years ago, in my "Natural History of 

 Creation," of which the " Anthropogeny " forms a second, 

 more detailed part. In the summer of 1873 I had the 

 academical lectures, on the outlines of the history of 

 human evolution, which I have delivered during the last 

 twelve years in Jena before a mixed audience of students 

 of all faculties, taken down in shorthand by two of that 

 nudience, Messrs. Kiessling and Schlawe. The task I 



