as not and
never could have any standing in science, since it is impossible to
adduce any facts to sustain it. We shall therefore dismiss it from
further consideration, and proceed to state certain general facts in
favor of the evolutionary hypothesis of the origin of man.




II

VESTIGES OF MAN'S ANCESTRY


When, some centuries ago, men began to find fossil remains of animals in
the rocks, a severe shock was given to the prevailing doctrine of the
recent creation of the earth. The adherents of the old theology made
strenuous efforts to explain away this unwelcome circumstance. The
shells found had been dropped by pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem;
they were mineral simulations of shells; they had been created by the
Deity and placed where found; they were anything but what they appeared
to be, the existing evidences of a long ancient period of animal life
reaching back very far beyond the assumed date of creation.

It need scarcely be said that these explanations, especially the one
that God had created fossil forms to deceive man, for some
incomprehensible purpose, could not long be maintained. Some of them
were inconsistent with the facts, others with common sense, and in due
time it was everywhere admitted that the earth is of remote duration and
has been inhabited by animals and plants for untold ages. Its structure
revealed its history; its annals were found to be written in the rocks;
its anatomy was full of the evidences of its origin.

When, not many years ago, men began to find the fossil remains of
ancient structures in the body of man himself, theology was brought face
to face with a problem as difficult to explain, from its special point
of view, as that of the fossils in the rocks. As the latter had
threatened and finally disproved the doctrine of the special creation of
the earth, so the former assailed the doctrine of the special creation
of man, and annihilated it in the minds of many eminent scientists. It
formed a prominent argument in favor of the theory of organic evolution,
and as such cal