THE STRUCTURE OF MAN 
INTRODUCTION 
SomE thirty-four years have elapsed since the publication of 
Charles Darwin’s work On the Origin of Species by Means of 
Natural Selection. A short period of time, and yet important 
enough to throw into the shade all previous centuries, so profound 
is the significance of the results obtained in it, in the field of 
Natural Science. 
Darwin’s book brought about a reformation not only of 
Zoology, but of our whole knowledge of surrounding Nature. It 
marked, in fact, the commencement of a new epoch, and of a new 
cosmology. This has been said so often and demonstrated so 
thoroughly, that the topic need not be further enlarged upon 
here. I cannot, however, refrain from briefly sketching the 
condition of the natural sciences during the last two centuries, 
since it is only on such a background that a correct picture of 
the enormous transformation which has since been effected in the 
intellectual life of all cultured nations can be obtained. 
In spite of the great discoveries made, in the sixteenth and 
seventeenth centuries, by such men as Kepler, Newton, Harvey, 
Schwammerdam, Malpighi, and Leeuwenhoeck, the Aristotelian 
philosophy, which had been stirred to new life at the pericd of the 
Reformation, was universally accepted. Its exegetical principle 
rested on the assumption of the existence of an intelligent design, 
to which the phenomena of nature were subordinated. The 
teleological speculations which arose out of it, and the resulting 
anthropocentric and anthropomorphic cosmology, outlived the 
centuries named. Indeed, in spite of all progress in science, they 
continued to count many of their most brilliant advocates among 
distinguished scientific men, even into the fifties of the present 
century. This philosophy was deeply rooted in human vanity, 
B 
