From myth to science.

Abstract

is a familiar story of a countryman visiting Zoo for first time. After stating at giraffe in astonishment mingled horror, he exclaimed, There ain't no such animal! We can hardly sympathise this countryman over giraffe, which is too familiar to be doubted, but we are staggered from time to time when science draws for us a new portrait of some prehistoric creature. We feel occasionally, in a gallery of prehistoric monsters, like countryman at Zoo. Polite incredulity, at least, seems most fitting when a creature more than forty feet long, even if its length is mostly neck and tail, is said to have behaved like a hen and laid eggs, If we were removed to a desert island where only men lived, deprived of our memory of all other members of great community of life and then suddenly introduced into Noah's ark, we would shrink in terrified horror from a world so apparently alien to our own. extraordinary diversity of animal species, even now, when familiarity momentarily disappears in contemplative reflection, suggests a mingling of many worlds instead of a world which is really one. If we could see, in succession and for first time, a jelly-fish, a sea-urchin, a lobster, a tortoise, an eagle, a shark, a giraffe, a butterfly, a whale, an ant, an armadillo, an elephant, and many others, we should agree old opinion that each species was specially and separately created, and add that many different worlds must have been shuffled together. Yet world of life, all its diversities, is one family. doctrine of transformism, doctrine that all species have grown out of other species, is too well grounded to be refused. Mr. Balfour, in a presidential address to British Association, spoke of aesthetic thrill which insight of science into unities of universe often bestows upon us. concept of evolution, of transformism, affirmation that one continuous process of development has produced myriad forms of life gives such an aesthetic thrill as we realise that all infinitely varied creatures around us are united as roots, trunk, branches, and foliage of a tree are united. Thomas Fuller found in genealogy of his Saviour that Rehoboam begat Abiam; that is, a bad father begat a bad Abiam begat Asa; that is, a bad father a good Asa begat Jehosaphat; that is, a good father a good Jehosaphat begat Joram; that is, a good father a bad son. One fundamental plan, one common relation of parentage, ran through many different situations. So in world of life many species, at first sight so diverse as to belong to different worlds, are manifestations of one fundamental plan. world of human mind, when surveyed as various animal species are surveyed in a museum, produces same impression of a bewildering collection of beings brought into a world to which they do not really belong. The which early societies present us are not easy at first to understand, remarks Maine, because they are so strange and uncouth. (1) beliefs and practices of our primitive forefathers, as of our primitive brothers to-day, often seem to us as strange, uncouth, and alien as strange beasts which once peopled earth. Though phenomena which early societies present us with are difficult to understand at first, Maine thinks they become and simple enough to patient thought, (2) but Sir James Frazer insists that the savage does not understand thoughts of civilised man, and few civilised men understand thoughts of savage. (3) Now this mental separation between primitive and civilised men may be compared to biological separation which divides species of animals like elephant and ant. philosopher Reid thought that differences between human minds were greater than any other differences between members of same species: all swallows, or even all queen, worker, or drone bees, are more alike than men are alike mentally. …