EVOLUTIONARY SCIENCE 157 



in its scope so as to read, What, in view of the assumed I 

 truth of the evolutionary hypothesis, can modern sci- ' 

 ence at large be rightly said to prove in relation to ^ 

 man's primitive state? In answering this question, 

 it is unnecessary for me to "go behind the returns"; 

 and I shall not undertake to criticise the premises and 

 arguments which capable judges regard as sufficient 

 to establish the conclusions to which I refer. I shall, 

 for the purpose of my argument, accept them at their 

 face value. On the other hand, I shall somewhat 

 ignore alleged scientific results that have failed to secure 

 general and unquahfied acceptance by those who are 

 competent to estimate their validity; for it is obvious 

 that, until they secure such acceptance, they are rightly 

 to be regarded as doubtful. 



1. From the point of view which I have defined we^ 

 must consider it to be estabhshed that, so far as natural 

 science throws light upon man's origin, primitive man 

 was produced by the natural evolution of species. To 

 put this in another way, man owes his physical nature 

 to physical antecedents, and to natural and inherited 

 variations of brute-ancestors. The investigations of 

 natural science do not establish the contention that, 

 in his primitive state, man possessed other and higher 

 advantages than could be afforded by the natural evo- 

 lution of species. 



2. It must also be regarded as established that the 

 only human conditions wliich can have been produced 

 by such evolution are such as are found in fact to be 

 natural to man. These conditions include an inherit- 



