the conclusions at which I arrived, after drawing up a rough draft,
appeared to me interesting, I thought that they might interest others.
It has often and confidently been asserted, that man s origin can never
be known: but ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does
knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much,
who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved
by science. The conclusion that man is the co-descendant with other
species of some ancient, lower, and extinct form, is not in any degree
new. Lamarck long ago came to this conclusion, which has lately been
maintained by several eminent naturalists and philosophers; for
instance, by Wallace, Huxley, Lyell, Vogt, Lubbock, Buchner, Rolle,
etc. (1. As the works of the first-named authors are so well known, I
need not give the titles; but as those of the latter are less well
known in England, I will give them: Sechs Vorlesungen uber die
Darwin sche Theorie: zweite Auflage, 1868, von Dr L. Buchner;
translated into French under the title Conferences sur la Theorie
Darwinienne, 1869. Der Mensch im Lichte der Darwin sche Lehre, 1865,
von Dr. F. Rolle. I will not attempt to give references to all the
authors who have taken the same side of the question. Thus G.
Canestrini has published ( Annuario della Soc. d. Nat., Modena, 1867,
page 81) a very curious paper on rudimentary characters, as bearing on
the origin of man. Another work has (1869) been published by Dr.
Francesco Barrago, bearing in Italian the title of Man, made in the
image of God, was also made in the image of the ape. ), and especially
by Haeckel. This last naturalist, besides his great work, Generelle
Morphologie (1866), has recently (1868, with a second edition in
1870), published his Naturliche Schopfungsgeschichte, in which he
fully discusses the genealogy of man. If this work had appeared before
my essay had been written, I should probably never have completed it.
Almost all the conclusions at which I have arrived I find confirmed by
this naturalist, whose knowledge on many points is much fuller than
mine. Wherever I have added any fact or view from Prof. Haeckel s
writings, I give his authority in the text; other statements I leave as
they originally stood in my manuscript, occasionally giving in the
foot-notes references to his works, as a confirmation of the more
doubtful or interesting points.
During many years it has seemed to me highly probable that sexual
selection has played an important part in differentiating the races of
man; but in my Origin of Species (first edition, page 199) I
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