386 THE KIDDLE OF THE UNIVERSE. 



condition a hundred years ago. That applies first of 

 all quantitatively to the colossal growth of our positive 

 information in all those provinces and their several 

 parts. But it applies with even greater force quali- 

 tatively to the deepening of our comprehension of 

 biological phenomena, and our knowledge of their 

 efficient causes. In this Charles Darwin (1859) takes 

 the palm of victory ; by his theory of selection he has 

 solved the great problem of " organic creation," of 

 the natural origin of the countless forms of life by 

 gradual transformation. It is true that Lamarck had 

 recognized fifty years earlier that the mode of this 

 transformation lay in the reciprocal action of heredity 

 and adaptation. However, Lamarck was hampered 

 by his ignorance of the principle of selection, and of 

 that deeper insight into the true nature of organiza- 

 tion which was only rendered possible after the 

 founding of the theory of evolution and the cellular 

 theory. When we collated the results of these and 

 other disciplines, and found the key to their harmonious 

 interpretation in the ancestral development of living 

 beings, we succeeded in establishing the monistic 

 biology, the principles of which I have endeavoured 

 to lay down securely in my General Morphology. 



V. — PROGRESS OF ANTHROPOLOGY. 



In a certain sense, the true science of man, rational 

 anthropology, takes precedence of every other science. 

 The saying of the ancient sage, " Man, know thyself," 

 and that other famous maxim, " Man is the measure 

 of all things," have been accepted and applied from 

 all time. And yet this science — taking it in its widest 

 sense — has languished longer than all other sciences 



