730 MAMMALIA. 



(3) Historical. Certainties in regard to remains of pri- 

 mitive man are few, but his individual development reads 

 like a recapitulation of ancestral history. 



To many, man seems too marvellous to have been natur- 

 ally evolved, to others the evidence seems insufficient, but 

 if the doctrine of descent is true for other organisms, it is 

 surely true for man also. 



As to the antiquity of the human race, it is certain that 

 men lived in Europe in the later stages of the Ice Age, and 

 there are indications of human life in Pliocene times. But 

 as it is certain that man could not have arisen from any of 

 the known anthropoid apes, and likely that he arose from 

 an ancestral stock common to them and to him, it seems 

 justifiable to date the antiquity of the race not later than the 

 time when the anthropoid apes are known to have existed 

 as a distinct race. This takes us back to Miocene ages. 



If man was naturally evolved, the factors in the process 

 require elucidation, but in regard to these we can only 

 speculate. From what we know of men and monkeys, it 

 seems likely that in the struggles of primitive man wits 

 were of more use than strength. When the habits of using 

 sticks and stone, of building shelters, of living in families 

 began — and they have begun among monkeys — it is likely 

 that wits would grow rapidly. The prolonged infancy, 

 characteristic of human offspring, would help to evolve 

 gentleness. But even more important is the fact that among 

 monkeys there are distinct societies. Families combine for 

 protection, the combination favours the development of 

 emotional and intellectual strength. " Man did not make 

 society; society made man." 



Finally, it is plain that all repugnance to the doctrine of 

 descent as applied to man should disappear when we 

 clearly realise the great axiom of evolution, that " there 

 is nothing in the end which was not also in the beginning." 



