CREATION BY EVOLUTION
character. Many are doubtless prejudiced against the doctrine of evolution because they feel that the foundations of morality would be undermined if the conviction becomes general that human beings were derived from animal ancestors. They do not sufficiently realize that the good as well as the evil qualities and impulses of human nature have their counterparts in the animal world. Both men and animals are occupied chiefly in the work of maintaining and perpetuating life. This work involves, in animals and man alike, a due adjustment of efforts to promote individual welfare and the welfare of others of the same species. Most animals pay little heed to the needs of creatures outside their own family or social group. Human beings do likewise. We think little of exterminating animals to satisfy our own needs, or even for mere sport; but we picture the gorilla as a horrible and dangerous creature if he can be provoked into making an attack upon a human being. But why should a man be anything more to a gorilla than a gorilla is to a man? To his own associates this commonly misrepresented animal is a kindly creature having a creditable endowment of domestic and social virtues. So is the man-eating tiger and the prowling wolf. Toward her little group of playful cubs the lioness is an indulgent and self-sacrificing parent, ready to incur any danger to protect her own kind. From her viewpoint man is just so much potential meat for the support of herself and the offspring of her body. The lioness is a beast of prey and a natural enemy of the human race because the evolutionary process, or the Lord, or perhaps both, made her in that particular fashion. Man in turn regards the lioness as a dangerous creature—a creature to be ruthlessly exterminated to insure his own safety.
After all, man's superiority to the lower animals is due
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