Excerpt from The Rise of Man: A Sketch of the Origin of the Human Race Darwin's views were bitterly opposed, although it would seem more dignified if God had fashioned the first man (not directly from a clod of soil, but indirectly after a long preparation of the material) through series of inter mediate stages of lower animals, from the infinitely more refined organism of an anthropoid brute. Yet, even from the standpoint of modern science we can still insist that man, though his body consists of the same material as the dust of the earth, holds an unique position among the rest of creation. The sway of conservatism, however, is great, and so the people trained in the old views of thought clung with tenacity to a literal belief in the story of Genesis. In spite of all that Darwin said in favor of the kinship of man to the rest of animate creation, almost half a century passed before the doctrine of evolution gained ground and became universally recognized; and there were no other objections to it, than the implication as to man's descent from lower forms of life and the denial of the legend that God had formed him directly from the dust of the earth. At present there may be no one trained in modes of scientific thinking who does not unhesitatingly accept the doctrine of evolution with all that it implies; but having understood the physiological solution of the origin of man, it may be wise to look at the argument of the reactionary party, whose main contention consists in ridiculing the idea that man was descended from the ape. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.