is the
conclusion to which the scientific world has come within a quarter of a
century from the publication of Mr. Darwin's "Origin of Species;" and
there is no more reason for supposing that this conclusion will ever be
gainsaid than for supposing that the Copernican astronomy will some time
be overthrown and the concentric spheres of Dante's heaven reinstated in
the minds of men.

It is not strange that this theory of man's origin, which we associate
mainly with the name of Mr. Darwin, should be to many people very
unwelcome. It is fast bringing about a still greater revolution in
thought than that which was heralded by Copernicus; and it naturally
takes some time for the various portions of one's theory of things to
become adjusted, one after another, to so vast and sweeping a change.
From many quarters the cry goes up,--If this be true, then Man is at
length cast down from his high position in the world. "I will not be
called a mammal, or the son of a mammal!" once exclaimed an acquaintance
of mine who perhaps had been brought up by hand. Such expressions of
feeling are crude, but the feeling is not unjustifiable. It is urged
that if man is physically akin to a baboon, as pigs are akin to horses,
and cows to deer, then Humanity can in nowise be regarded as occupying a
peculiar place in the universe; it becomes a mere incident in an endless
series of changes, and how can we say that the same process of evolution
that has produced mankind may not by and by produce something far more
perfect? There was a time when huge bird-like reptiles were the lords of
creation, and after these had been "sealed within the iron hills" there
came successive dynasties of mammals; and as the iguanodon gave place to
the great Eocene marsupials, as the mastodon and the sabre-toothed lion
have long since vanished from the scene, so may not Man by and by
disappear to make way for some higher creature, and so on forever? In
such case, why should we regard Man as in any higher sense the object of
Divine care than a pig? Still stronger does the case appear when we
remember that those countless adaptations of means to ends in nature,
which since the time of Voltaire and Paley we have been accustomed to
cite as evidences of creative design, have received at the hands of Mr.
Darwin a very different interpretation. The lobster's powerful claw, the
butterfly's gorgeous tints, the rose's delicious fragrance, the
architectural instinct of the bee, t