MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 467 



of reptile-mammals, the Monotremes (Ornithorhynchus, Tacky- 

 gloss us), now also represented, although scantily, in Australia. 

 The Monotremes may be assumed to be derived from reptilian 

 stock, perhaps from ancestors of the three-eyed lizards of New 

 Zealand, known as Sphenodon or Hatteria. Behind these 

 lizards we certainly find the primitive amphibians or mailed 

 frogs and behind these the group of lung-bearing fishes, known 

 as fringefins or crossopterygians. These fishes were originally 

 derived, no doitbt, from sharks, and the sharks may have 

 come from wormlike forms through intermediate groups which 

 find their nearest modern homologues in the lamprey and 

 lancelet, and possibly in the wormlike acorn-tongue or balano- 

 glossus, a creature which to a soft wormlike body adds the gill 

 slits of a vertebrate and a trace of a primitive backbone or 

 notochord. Haeckel goes on with confidence to show the 

 derivation of one type of worm from another, of all from allies 

 of the hydra and volvox, then from the one-celled amoeba, 

 and at last from the still more primitive monera, a micro- 

 scopic bit of protoplasm. But with every step backward the 

 genealogy grows more and more hypothetical. All sorts of 

 possibilities open at every turn and positive proof is necessarily 

 lacking. The gill slits and the primitive notochord of the human 

 embryo leave little doubt that man in common with all other 

 vertebrates had a fishlike ancestry. In the line of this ancestry 

 must have lain the extinct crossopterygian fishes, but behind 

 this there is room all the way for serious doubt and questioning. 



This much is certain, man's place is in nature. He is part 

 and parcel of nature, and the forces that still act on flower and 

 bird and beast are the forces by which the central energy of 

 the universe, whatever its name or definition, each day "in- 

 stantly and constantly renews the work of creation." 



Objections have been raised to the theory of the descent of 

 man from the lower primates on grounds supposed to find their 

 sanction in theology. Such objections have no standing in 

 science. In Darwin's words: "Theology and science must each 

 run its own course and I am not responsible if their meeting- 

 point be still afar off." In the long run, theology, with other 

 forms of philosophy, must adjust itself to harmonize with 

 ascertained truth. The origin of man is not a question of per- 

 sonal preference nor one to be decided by a majority vote. The 

 only question is as to what is true. "Extinguished theolo- 



