Evolution
Even the most uncivilized peoples of the African continent have a basic idea of the wide variety of species that exists in this world. They naturally differentiate various kinds of animals they hunt and various plants they gather. Their ideas have, however, no formal distinctness. For this we must await the advent of science. Many philosophical writers have included some idea of evolution in their schemes. We shall not consider these but shall concentrate on the concrete idea of evolution of organic species by descent. The problem of human origins has long been a central one in the endeavor of mankind to understand the nature of the universe. No one can say just when our ancestral forbears, in the evolutionary sense, first turned to reflection and began to be curious as to how they came to exist as men. However, it must have been at some exceedingly remote epoch in the past--long before the dawn of the historical period. This is indicated by the fact that a general interest in this problem is reflected in the earliest mythology of which we have any account.
The creation legend, with its usual naïve explanation of the origin of man, must be regarded as being among the oldest and most widespread fragments of primitive folklore. How early such myths were invented no one can tell. For, as they come to us, they are already hoary with age, and represent miscellaneous accretions from the untold millennia of earlier folk life. The problem of human origins retained its position of dominance when man finally began to doubt the ancient myths and to observe the facts of life in the light of reason. The early Greek thinkers were among the first to cast aside the authority of the legend. Their speculations regarding the origin of man and his culture as a part of the natural order marked the first important beginnings of the scientific approach to the problem. As might have been expected, some of the notions of these pioneer scientist-philosophers relative to the nature and origin of man were little better than the myths which they had rejected. No one can survey the long struggle toward modern conceptions of human origins without being strongly impressed by the stubborn reluctance of man to accept his rightful place in the natural order. The notion that the genus Homo is, after all, merely the most complex and perfect living organism that nature has so far been able to produce is at least as old as Aristotle. In spite of this fact the scientific point of view never became firmly established, even among the more intelligent, until comparatively recent times. The ancient heritage of myth and legend, duly ensconced in a theological setting, and the unreasoning natural arrogance of man himself have conspired to prevent the normal development of this conception during centuries of general intellectual progress. From the time of Darwin onward, however, a mass of irrefutable supporting evidence has been in process of accumulation from several more or less independent lines of approach. At the present time it is possible to define man's place in nature with greater accuracy and certainty than can be done in the case of most other existing types.
In fact, the evidence showing man's genetic relationship to the higher animals has tended more and more to become one of the strongest links in the general theory of evolution. One of the chief difficulties in the way of coming to a proper understanding of the problem arises from the fact that man himself holds a favored place in the system of nature. By virtue of a general evolutionary advance he has come into possession of certain special endowments which now enable him to pass judgment upon his less favored relatives without let or hindrance. Among the ignorant and unthinking, this condition of affairs has led to the blind and futile prejudice which would make of man an altogether distinct creature set apart from the rest of living nature by a superhuman power. But even when an intelligent and sympathetic approach to the problem can be made, it is often not easy to take a wholly objective attitude. It is one thing, for example, to investigate the evolution of the insect or the horse, and quite another to examine into the facts regarding the evolution of man. The doctrine of the primacy of man, in the supernatural or theological sense, is so deeply rooted in our habitual modes of thought, that it is likely to persist after a long schooling in scientific objectivism.
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