called “The Origin of Species,” in which he tries to solve the mystery of Creation by the hypothesis, that all animals, and plants, have been gradually developed from a few primal forms, through a process he calls, “Natural Selection, or the Survival of the Fittest,” founding his argument on the changes produced in animals, and plants, since their domestication with man. Mankind have not been exempted, and their descent from some of the ape family, thought to be quite evident.[1]
So fascinating has this theory been to many people: Darwinism has become a creed: counting numerous enthusiastic votaries in every land; who hail it as a sort of revelation, the key that opens the mysterious portals of nature. They seem almost as delighted at
NOTE
- ↑ Mr. Darwin says little about the evolution of man from an ape, in ‘The Origin of Species.’ It was not until 1871, that he published his ideas on this subject in “The Descent of Man.” However in the mean time Professor Huxley had discussed the question, from a similar point of view, in his work, named ‘Man's place in Nature:’ it was also suggested by Lamarck in his Philosophie Zoologique. (vide p. 6.)
