To recapitulate: Our question is the Whence and the Whither of man.
To this question the Bible gives a clear and definite answer. Can
Science also give an answer, and is this in the main in accord with
the answer of Scripture? Science can answer the question only by the
historical method of tracing the history of life in the past and
observing the goal toward which it tends. If the evolution theory be
true, the record of human achievement and progress forms only one
short chapter in the history of the ages. If from the records of
man's little span of life on the globe we can deduce laws of history
on whose truth we can rely, with how much greater confidence and
certainty may we rely on laws which have governed all life since its
earliest appearance?--always provided that such can be found.
Our first effort must therefore be to trace the great line of
development through a few of its most characteristic stages from the
simplest living beings up to man. This will be our work in the three
succeeding lectures. And to these I must ask you to bring a large
store of patience. Anatomical details are at best dry and
uninteresting. But these dry facts of anatomy form the foundation on
which all our arguments and hopes must rest.
But if you will think long and carefully even of anatomical facts,
you will see in and behind them something more and grander than
they.
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