PREFACE 



"npHE more I think of it," says Mr. Ruskin, "I 

 find this conclusion more impressed upon 

 me — that the greatest thing a human soul ever does 

 in this world is to see something, and tell what it 

 saw in a plain way." In these pages an attempt 

 is made to tell " in a plain way " a few of the 

 things which Science is now. seeing with regard to 

 the Ascent of Man. Whether these seeings are there 

 at all is another matter. But, even if visions, eveiy 

 thinking mind, through whatever medium, should 

 look at them. What Science has to say about himself 

 is of transcendent interest to Man, and the prac- 

 tical bearings of this theme are coming to be more 

 vital than any on the field of knowledge. The 

 thread which binds the facts is, it is true, but a 

 hypothesis. As the theory, nevertheless, with which 



