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CHAPTER XV

 

DARWINISM APPLIED TO MAN

General identity of human and animal structure—Rudiments and variations showing relation of man to other mammals—The embryonic development of man and other mammalia—Diseases common to man and the lower animals—The animals most nearly allied to man—The brains of man and apes—External differences of man and apes—Summary of the animal characteristics of man—The geological antiquity of man—The probable birthplace of man—The origin of the moral and intellectual nature of man—The argument from continuity—The origin of the mathematical faculty—The origin of the musical and artistic faculties—Independent proof that these faculties have not been developed by natural selection—The interpretation of the facts—Concluding remarks.

Our review of modern Darwinism might fitly have terminated with the preceding chapter; but the immense interest that attaches to the origin of the human race, and the amount of misconception which prevails regarding the essential teachings of Darwin's theory on this question, as well as regarding my own special views upon it, induce me to devote a final chapter to its discussion.

To any one who considers the structure of man's body, even in the most superficial manner, it must be evident that it is the body of an animal, differing greatly, it is true, from the bodies of all other animals, but agreeing with them in all essential features. The bony structure of man classes him as a vertebrate; the mode of suckling his young classes him as a mammal; his blood, his muscles, and his nerves, the structure of his heart with its veins and arteries, his lungs and his whole respiratory and circulatory systems, all closely correspond to those of other mammals, and are often almost identical with