foundation of civilisation. The rise of the human race is due for the
most part to the advanced sexual selection which our ancestors
exercised in choosing their mates.

Darwin accepted in the main the general outlines of man's ancestral
tree, as I gave it in the General Morphology and the History of
Creation, and admitted that his studies led him to the same
conclusion. That he did not at once apply the theory to man in his
first work was a commendable piece of discretion; such a sequel was
bound to excite the strongest opposition to the whole theory. The
first thing to do was to establish it as regards the animal and plant
worlds. The subsequent extension to man was bound to be made sooner or
later.

It is important to understand this very clearly. If all living things
come from a common root, man must be included in the general scheme of
evolution. On the other hand, if the various species were separately
created, man, too, must have been created, and not evolved. We have to
choose between these two alternatives. This cannot be too frequently
or too strongly emphasised. EITHER all the species of animals and
plants are of supernatural origin--created, not evolved--and in that
case man also is the outcome of a creative act, as religion teaches,
OR the different species have been evolved from a few common, simple
ancestral forms, and in that case man is the highest fruit of the tree
of evolution.

We may state this briefly in the following principle--The descent of
man from the lower animals is a special deduction which inevitably
follows from the general inductive law of the whole theory of
evolution. In this principle we have a clear and plain statement of