And in these lectures I shall take for granted, what
some scientists still doubt, that man also is a product of
evolution. For the weight of evidence in favor of this view is
constantly increasing, and seems already to strongly preponderate.
Also I wish in these lectures to grant all that the most ardent
evolutionist can possibly claim. Not that I would lower man's
position, but I have a continually increasing respect for the
so-called "lower animals."
Now if the theory of evolution be true, and really only on this
condition, life has had a history; and human history began ages
before man's actual appearance on the globe, just as American
history began to be fashioned by Anglo-Saxons, Danes, and Normans
before they set foot even in England. We study history mainly to
deduce its laws; and that knowing them we may from the past forecast
the future, prepare for its emergencies, and avoid or wisely meet,
its dangers. And we rely on these laws of history because they are
the embodiment of ages of human experience.
Whatever be our system of philosophy we all practically rely on past
experience and observation. Fire burns and water drowns. This we
know, and this knowledge governs our daily lives, whatever be our
theories, or even our ignorance, of the laws of heat and
respiration. Now human history is the embodiment of the experience
of the race; and we study it in the full confidence that, if we can
deduce its laws, we can rely on racial experience certainly as
safely as on that of the individual.
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