MAN AND HIS ANCESTOR

A STUDY IN EVOLUTION

BY

CHARLES MORRIS

AUTHOR OF "CIVILIZATION: AN HISTORICAL REVIEW
OF ITS ELEMENTS," "THE ARYAN RACE," ETC.

New York

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

LONDON: MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd.

1900

All rights reserved

Copyright, 1900,

By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing & Co.—Berwick & Smith
Norwood Mass. U.S.A.

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PREFACE

It would be difficult to find any intelligent person in this age of theworld who has not some theory or opinion in regard to the origin of man,and perhaps almost as difficult to find any such person who can give agood and sufficient reason for the faith that is in him. This isespecially the case with those who look upon man as a product ofevolution, a natural outgrowth from the world of lower life, since heresimple faith or ancient authority is not sufficient, as in the creationhypothesis, but scientific evidence and logical argument are necessary.It is to enable this class of readers to test the quality andsufficiency of their belief that this book has been prepared.

The question of the evolutionary origin of man has been by no meansneglected by recent authors, yet it has been dealt with chiefly as aside issue in works of a more extended purpose, and largely in technicallanguage, simple to the scientist, but difficult to the general reader.The only work that makes this subject its leading theme, Darwin's"Descent of Man," adds to it a still longer treatise on "Sexual[vi]Selection," so that the subject of man's evolutionary origin cannot besaid to have been yet dealt with for itself alone. Darwin's work,moreover, is now nearly thirty years old, and to this extent antiquated,while at best it cannot be considered as well suited for generalreading.

These considerations have given rise to the present work, in which aneffort has been made to present the subject of man's origin in a popularmanner, to dwell on the various significant facts that have beendiscovered since Darwin's time, and to offer certain lines of evidencenever before presented in this connection, and which seem to add muchstrength to the general argument.

The subject is one of such widespread interest as to make it probablethat a plain and brief presentation of it will be acceptable, both toenable those who are evolutionists in principle to learn on what groundstheir acceptance of this phase of evolution stands, and to aid those whoare at sea on the whole subject of man's origin to reach some fixedconclusion. For these purposes this little book has been set afloat,with the hope that it may carry some doubters to solid land and teachsome believers the fundamental elements of their faith.

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CONTENTS