The Whence and the Whither of Man

The question.--The two theories of man's origin.--The argument purely historical.--Means of tracing man's ancestry and history.--Classification.--Ontogenesis and Phylogenesis.

CHAPTER II

PROTOZOA TO WORMS: CELLS, TISSUES, AND ORGANS

Amoeba: Its anatomy and physiology.--Development of the cell.--Hydra: The development of digestive and reproductive organs, and of tissues.--Forms intermediate between amoeba and hydra: Magosphæra, volvox.--Embryonic development.--Turbellaria: Appearance of a body wall, of ganglion, and nerve-cords.

CHAPTER III

WORMS TO VERTEBRATES: SKELETON AND HEAD

Worms and the development of organs.--Mollusks: The external protective skeleton leads to degeneration or stagnation.--Annelids and arthropods: The external locomotive skeleton leads to temporary rapid advance, but fails of the goal.--Its disadvantages.--Vertebrates: The internal locomotive skeleton leads to backbone and brain.--Reasons for their dominance.--The primitive vertebrate.

CHAPTER IV

VERTEBRATES: BACKBONE AND BRAIN

The advance of vertebrates from fish through amphibia and reptiles to mammals.--The development of skeleton, appendages, circulatory and respiratory systems, and brain.--Mammals: The oviparous monotremata.--Marsupials.--Placental mammals.--Development of the placenta.--Primates.--Arboreal life and the development of the hand.--Comparison of man with the highest apes.--Recapitulation of the history of man's origin and development.--The sequence of dominant functions.

CHAPTER V

THE HISTORY OF MENTAL DEVELOPMENT AND ITS SEQUENCE OF FUNCTIONS

Mode of investigation.--Intellect.--Sense-perceptions.--Association. --Inference and understanding.--Rational intelligence.--Modes of mental or nervous action.--Reflex action, unconscious and comparatively mechanical.--Instinctive action: The actor is conscious, but guided by heredity.--Intelligent action.--The actor is conscious, guided by intelligence resulting from experience or observation.--The will stimulated by motives.--Appetites.--Fear and other prudential considerations.--Care for young and love of mates.--The dawn of unselfishness.--Motives furnished by the rational intelligence: Truth, right, duty.--Recapitulation: The will, stimulated by ever higher motives, is finally to be dominated by unselfishness and love of truth and righteousness.--These rouse the only inappeasable hunger, and are capable of indefinite development.--Strength of these motives.--Their complete dominance the goal of human development.

CHAPTER VI

NATURAL SELECTION AND ENVIRONMENT

The reversal of the sequence of functions leads to extermination, degeneration, or, rarely, to stagnation.--Natural selection becomes more unsparing as we go higher.--Extinction.--Severity of the struggle for life.--Environment one.--But lower animals come into vital relation with but a small part of it.--It consists of a myriad of forces, which, as acting on a given form, may be considered as one grand resultant.--Environment is thus a power making at first for digestion and reproduction, then for muscular strength and activity, then for shrewdness, finally for unselfishness and righteousness.--An ultimate "power, not ourselves, making for righteousness," a personality.--Our knowledge of this personality may be valid, even though very incomplete.--Religion.--Conformity to the spiritual in or behind environment is likeness to God.--The conservative tendency in evolution.

CHAPTER VII

CONFORMITY TO ENVIRONMENT

Human environment.--The development of the family as the school of man's training.--The family as the school of unselfishness and obedience.--The family as the basis of social life.--Society as an aid to conformity to environment by increasing intelligence and training conscience.--Mental and moral heredity.--Personal magnetism.--Man's search for a king.--The essence of Christianity.--Conformity to environment gives future supremacy, but often at the cost of present hardship.--Conformity as obedience to the laws of our being.--Environment best understood through the study of the human mind.--Productiveness and prospectiveness of vital capital.--Faith.