Evolution and creation

“‘Learn what is true in order to do what is right’ is the summing up of the whole duty of man for all who are unable to satisfy their mental hunger with the east wind of authority.”—Huxley.

[Illustration: Decoration]

PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR.

1887.

PREFACE.

Many imperfections, as I anticipated, have been discovered in my “Popular Faith Unveiled,” some of importance and others of little consequence; and many suggestions have been offered in all kindness by those who have done me the honour of reading my work, for consideration in case I should issue another edition. The strongest of all the arguments urged in favour of the real necessity for a second and revised edition is that that part of the subject treated upon which related more particularly to the true origin of man was not dealt with in a sufficiently exhaustive manner in the last work. This, of course, is a true charge: but it should be borne in mind that the main object of the book was to expose the real nature of the popular superstition, and not to trace out the pedigree of man; and, moreover, to have entered fully into such subjects as the evolution of mind and matter would have considerably augmented the bulk of the work, and consequently have necessitated such an increase in the price as to have made it prohibitory to a large number of thinkers, who have not too much spare cash to throw away. I therefore determined not to re-issue the work in an amplified form, but to supplement it with a number of published lectures (delivered here and in various other large towns) and articles, which should be ultimately brought out as an illustrated volume.

These lectures, etc., some of which are re-prints from journals and some of which I have myself printed in my leisure moments, I now offer to the public in book form, together with a number of figures, maps, etc., illustrative of the subjects treated upon. “Man—Whence and Whither” and “Evolution of the God-idea” are re-printed from The Agnostic; “Man’s Antiquity,” “Evolution of Mind,” “Zodiacal Mythology,” “Intellectual Progress in Europe” and “The Annals of Tacitus” from the Secular Review; and “The Special Senses” and “The Bible” from The Agnostic Annual: the remainder of the text, as before stated, has been printed by myself.