PDF - Wallace Online

vii THE ANTIQUITY AND ORIGIN OF MAN 419But the question of the mere "Antiquity of Man"almost sank into insignificance at a very early period ofthe inquiry, in comparison with the far more momentousand more exciting problem of the development of man fromsome lower animal form, which the theories of Mr. Darwinand of Mr. Herbert Spencer soon showed to be inseparablybound up with it. This has been, and to some extent stillis, the subject of fierce conflict but the; controversy as to thefact of such development is now almost at an end, since oneof the most talented representatives of Catholic theology,and an anatomist of high standing Professor Mivart fullyadopts it as regards physical structure, reserving his oppositionfor those parts of the theory which would deduce man'swhole intellectual and moral nature from the same source andby a similar mode of development.Never, perhaps, in the whole history of science or philosophyhas so great a revolution in thought and opinion beeneffected as in the twelve years from 1859 to 1871, therespective dates of publication of Mr. Darwin's Origin ofSpecies and Descent of Man. Up to the commencementof this period the belief in the independent creation ororigin of the species of animals and plants, and the veryrecent appearance of man upon the earth, were, practically,universal. Long before the end of it these two beliefs hadutterly disappeared, not only in the scientific world, butalmost equally so among the literary and educated classesgenerally. The belief in the independent origin of man helditsground somewhat longer; but the publication of Mr.Darwin's great work gave even that its deathblow, for hardlyany one capable of judging of the evidence now doubts thederivative nature of man's bodily structure as a whole,although many believe that his mind, and even some of hisphysical characteristics, may be due to the action of otherforces than have acted in the case of the lower animals.We need hardly be surprised, under these circumstances,if there has been a tendency among men of science to passfrom one extreme to the other ;from a profession (so fewyears ago) of total ignorance as to the mode of origin of allliving things, to a claim to almost complete knowledge of thewhole progress of the universe, from the first speck of living