36 ANTHROPOGENESIS. 



pourtrayed in Darwin's ' Descent of Man.' Taking 

 now as a text, Professor Haeckel's recently 

 published work on ' Anthropogenesis,' 1 I propose on 

 the present occasion to give a connected view of the 

 alleged line of Man's Descent, tracing the ancestral 

 forms through which, according to Haeckel, the 

 human race was successively evolved. 



Mr. Darwin, in his ' Descent of Man,' I may 

 premise, refers to Professor Haeckel's former work 

 on the ' History of Creation according to 

 Natural Laws' 2 as affording a very complete 

 exposition of the doctrine of Evolution, and observes 

 that if the book had appeared earlier, he would 

 probably not have published his own. Haeckel's 

 present work comprises a course of lectures on the 

 Origin of Man, delivered to a popular audience at 

 Jena, in the university of which he is a Professor. 



Assuming with all the zeal and earnestness of 

 conviction that the doctrine of Evolution is true, 

 and so self-evident that it cannot be justly gainsaid, 

 Professor Haeckel maintains that the recognition of 

 the descent of man throughout innumerable oenera- 

 tions, from the lowest organisms, is the only means 

 calculated to guide us to a better comprehension of 

 the significance of the facts of embryonic development. 

 The better comprehension of the significance of the 

 facts of the embryonic development of man, thus 



1 Aiithi'opogeiiie — Eiitiuickehtngsgeschichte des Menschen, von 

 Ernst Haeckel, Professor an der Universitat Jena. Leipzig, 1874. 



2 Natiirliche Sdiopfungsgeschichte, von Dr. Ernst Haeckel, Pro- 

 fessor an der Universitat Jena. Berlin, 1870. 



