II.

Man's Place in Nature, as affected by Darwinism.


When the Copernican astronomy was finally established through the
discoveries of Kepler and Newton, it might well have been pronounced the
greatest scientific achievement of the human mind; but it was still more
than that. It was the greatest revolution that had ever been effected in
Man's views of his relations to the universe in which he lives, and of
which he is--at least during the present life--a part. During the
nineteenth century, however, a still greater revolution has been
effected. Not only has Lyell enlarged our mental horizon in time as much
as Newton enlarged it in space, but it appears that throughout these
vast stretches of time and space with which we have been made acquainted
there are sundry well-marked changes going on. Certain definite paths of
development are being pursued; and around us on every side we behold
worlds, organisms, and societies in divers stages of progress or
decline. Still more, as we examine the records of past life upon our
globe, and study the mutual relations of the living things that still
remain, it appears that the higher forms of life--including Man
himself--are the modified descendants of lower forms. Zoölogically
speaking, Man can no longer be regarded as a creature apart by himself.
We cannot erect an order on purpose to contain him, as Cuvier tried to
do; we cannot even make a separate family for him. Man is not only a
vertebrate, a mammal, and a primate, but he belongs, as a genus, to the
catarrhine family of apes. And just as lions, leopards, and
lynxes--different genera of the cat-family--are descended from a common
stock of carnivora, back to which we may also trace the pedigrees of