And every creeping thing that creeps the ground.
Thus said, he form’d thee, Adam, thee, O man,
Dust of the ground, and in thy nostrils breath’d
The breath of life: in his own image he
Created thee, in the image of God
Express, and thou becam’st a living soul.
—Paradise Lost, Book VII., 449–456, 505–510, 516–528.
§ 4. Proofs of Our Animal Origin.
The third and last of the Evolution stumbling-blocks is that connected with the dogma of the Fall and Atonement. Before considering this, it will be better, I think, to summarise as briefly and simply as possible some of the chief proofs of our animal origin. The well-informed can skip this section, which is intended for the benefit of that vast majority—the ill-informed. Space will not permit me to do much more than allude to the proofs; but anyone really desirous of convincing himself or herself of the truth of the doctrine, and at the same time wishing to avoid details that might possibly prove wearisome, will find it popularly treated in Huxley’s work on Man’s Place in Nature (Macmillan); in Dennis Hird’s An Easy Outline of Evolution (Watts & Co.; 2s. 6d.); in Edward Clodd’s The Story of Creation (Watts & Co.; 6d.); in S. Laing’s Modern Science and Modern Thought (Watts & Co.; 6d.); in Haeckel’s Riddle of the Universe (Watts & Co.; 6d.), though this can hardly, perhaps, be described as popular; and in Metchnikoff’s The Nature of Man (Heinemann, 1903; 12s. 6d.). The most complete work on the subject is Haeckel’s The Evolution of Man (Watts & Co., 1905; 42s.; abridged edition, 2s.). This is in two volumes, copiously illustrated, of which the first is entirely devoted to human embryology or ontogeny, a branch of science which furnishes the most overwhelming evidence.