480 ON OUR PRESENT KNOWLEDGE OF THE ORIGIN OF MAN. 



creations of separate species. The genesis of man affords innumerable 

 illustrations of it. 



When we regard the science of the genesis of man from the most 

 general point of view, and bring together all the empirical arguments 

 for it, then we may say to-day with perfect justice that the descent of 

 man from an extinct tertiary primate chain is no longer a vague 

 hypothesis, but an historical fact. Naturally this fact can not be exactly 

 demonstrated; we can not point out the innumerable physical and 

 chemical processes which in the course of a hundred million years have 

 gradually led up from the simplest moner and the unicellular egg-form 

 to the gorilla and to man. But the same thing is true of all other 

 historical facts. We all believe that Linnams and Laplace, Newton, 

 and Luther, Malpighi and Aristotle once lived, although this can notbe 

 exactly demonstrated in the sense of modern physical science. We 

 firmby believe in the existence of these and of many other heroic minds 

 because we know the works they have left behind, and because we see 

 the powerful influence they have had upon the history of civilization. 

 But these indirect arguments have no more conclusive force than those 

 which we have put forward for the vertebrate history of man. 



Of many Mesozoic animals of the Jurassic period we know but a single 

 bone, the under jaw, and Huxley has very finely explained the cause of 

 this strange phenomenon. We all consider it settled that these animals 

 had also upper jaws as well as other bones, although we can not certainly 

 demonstrate it. Yet the u exact school, " which considers the evolution 

 of species as an undemonstrated hypothesis, must regard the lower jaw 

 as the only bone in the body of these remarkable animals. 



Let us now in conclusion take a hasty glance into the immediate 

 future. I am entirely convinced that the science of the twentieth 

 century will not only accept our doctrine of development, but will cele- 

 brate itas the most significant intellectual achievement of our time, for 

 the illuminating beams of this sun have scattered the heavy clouds of 

 ignorance and superstition which hitherto shrouded in impenetrable 

 darkness the most important of all scientific problems, that of the 

 origin of man, of his true essence, and of his place in nature. The 

 incalculable influence of the science of the development of man upon 

 all other branches of science, and especially upon culture, will bear the 

 most blessed fruits. The great work which was in our century begun 

 by Lamarck and finished by Darwin will for all time remain one of the 

 most significant achievements of the human mind, and the monistic 

 philosophy which we found upon its theory of evolution will not only 

 powerfully further the perception of the truths of nature, but also their 

 practical worth in the service of the beautiful and the good. This 

 monism is, however, based upon the empirical data furnished by modern 

 phylogenetic zoology. 



