BookRix

The Field Of Natural Phenomena Into Which I Would Introduce My Readers
In The Following Chapters Has A Quite Peculiar Place In The Broad
Realm Of Scientific Inquiry. There Is No Object Of Investigation That
Touches Man More Closely, And The Knowledge Of Which Should Be More
Acceptable To Him, Than His Own Frame. But Among All The Various
Branches Of The Natural History Of Mankind, Or Anthropology, The Story
Of His Development By Natural Means Must Excite The Most Lively
Interest. It Gives Us The Key Of The Great World-Riddles At Which The
Human Mind Has Been Working For Thousands Of Years. The Problem Of The
Nature Of Man, Or The Question Of Man's Place In Nature, And The
Cognate Inquiries As To The Past, The Earliest History, The Present
Situation, And The Future Of Humanity--All These Most Important
Questions Are Directly And Intimately Connected With That Branch Of
Study Which We Call The Science Of The Evolution Of Man, Or, In One
Word, "Anthropogeny" (The Genesis Of Man). Yet It Is An Astonishing
Fact That The Science Of The Evolution Of Man Does Not Even Yet Form
Part Of The Scheme Of General Education. In Fact, Educated People Even
In Our Day Are For The Most Part Quite Ignorant Of The Important
Truths And Remarkable Phenomena Which Anthropogeny Teaches Us.