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The Whence and the Whither of Man - A Brief History of His Origin and Development through Conformity to Environment; Being the Morse Lectures of 1895 by John Mason Tyler
page 31 of 331 (09%)
Finally, even from our present knowledge of the past progress of
life we shall hope to catch hints at least that man's only path to
his destined goal is the straight and narrow road pointed out in the
Bible. If in this we are even fairly successful we shall find a
relation and bond between the Bible and Science worthy of all
consideration. And this is the only agreement which can ever satisfy
us.

If I wished to bring before you a view of the development of man, I
should best choose individuals or families from various periods of
human history from the earliest times down to the present. I should
try to tell you how they looked and lived. But if anyone should
attempt to condense into three lectures such a history of even one
line of the human race, you would probably think him insane. Even if
he succeeded in giving a fairly clear view of the different stages,
the successive stages would be so remote from one another, such vast
changes would necessarily remain unnoticed or unexplained that you
would hardly believe that they could have any genetic relation or
belong to one developmental series.

But the history which I must attempt to condense for you is measured
by ages, and the successive terms of the series will be indefinitely
more remote from each other than the life and thoughts of Lincoln or
Washington from those of our most primitive Aryan ancestor or of the
rudest savage of the Stone Age. The series must appear exceedingly
disconnected. Systems of organs will apparently spring suddenly into
existence, and we shall have no time to trace their origin or
earlier development. Even if we had an abundance of time many gaps
would still remain; for the forms, which according to our theory
must have occupied their place, have long since disappeared and
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