THE OEIGIN OF MAN 131 



hasty review of the problem ; but it would be well to draw 

 from this summary any lesson that may be applicable in the 

 present time — and such is the purpose of this lecture. If we 

 ask ourselves the question, Has humanity greatly benefited by 

 the knowledge scattered broadcast throughout the world in 

 1859 ?, I think we must certainly answer that it has not. 



This new creed fell upon the educated and the uneducated 

 alike, it overwhelmed them all. For the comparatively few 

 it taught the nobility of the recent achievement of Man's rise 

 from brute creation ; for all it inculcated a belief that his rise, 

 noble though it might have been, was due to the natural 

 selection of pure chance variations ; fo»the masses it showed, 

 by a transit marked by catch-words, a survival of the fittest 

 by a crude struggle for existence from an extremely recent 

 brute origin in the existing apes. 



I beheve that these doctrines have left their mark, that 

 they are stamping present events with their impress. 



Is there an alternative, is there a way out of believing that 

 we are new-sprung from the ape by a process of chance varia- 

 tions leading to change of type after a pure brutish struggle 

 for existence ? Were it not backed by demonstrated evidence 

 it would be wrong — even in these times — to put forward such 

 a view ; but the evidence is to hand. It is upon the evidence 

 that I have, in part, laid before you that I would urge you to 

 reconsider the teaching of the immediate post-Darwinian 

 school. 



Man is no new-begot child of the ape, bred of a struggle for 

 existence upon brutish fines — nor should the belief that such 

 is his origin, oft dinned into his ears by scientists, influence 

 his conduct. Were he to regard himseK as an extremely 

 ancient type, distinguished chiefly by the qualities of his mind, 

 and to look upon the existing Primates as the failures of his 

 line, as his misguided and brutish collaterals, rather than as 

 his ancestors, I think it would be something gained for the 

 ethical outlook of Homo — and also it would be consistent with 

 present knowledge. 



