Perfect Book Titles: The Origin of Species and the Descent of Man

Author Charles Darwin (1809-1882) was a British naturalist and geologist famous for what we remember as his pronouncement "Man was descended from the apes" in his 1859 book The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. But having read his book, in tiny print I might add, and having finished it and The Descent of Man this morning, I could not find those words or that phrase in their combined 924 pages.

From Wikipedia: ",,, best known for his contributions to evolutionary theory. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestors, and in a joint publication with Alfred Russel Wallace introduced his scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection, in which the struggle for existence has a similar effect to the artificial selection involved in selective breeding."

 
Essentially Darwin, thru his precise observations of plants, animals and tribes, and citing other works as well, overcame the then-current scientific concept of "transmutation" to refer to species who have undergone biological changes through hybridization. The scientists of the time had to invent terms to describe their theories, and after Origins publication and severe debates, evolution was coined. The scientific community and much of the general public had accepted this new term by 1870. Today, in modified form, a broad consensus has developed in which natural selection was recognized as the basic mechanism of evolution.

<sup>Reading the books, it's readily apparent that Darwin is chiefly the consummate observer, recorder and synthesizer of these theories during his time. Whereas Origin is 374 pages with 12 page Glossary, Descent is written in three discrete parts for a total of 534 pages and supplemental notes, at least in my undated copy. I admit its somewhat tedious reading, yet every page brings a new discovery or insight, or more importantly, the basis for later insight and conviction.

Descent of Man is much more influential than Origin in describing man. Darwin notes all the similarities man has to animals, even to the downy hair on some women, vestiges of much thicker coverings. He describes mating and birth and the senses of man and compares them closely to all mammals. Finally he writes, "...it has come to pass that man and all other vertebrate animals have been constructed on the same general model...." 

He goes on to state an important fact myself and most religionists would agree on, from as early as the story of Adam and Eve's creation: "If we consider all the races of man as forming a single species, his range is enormous." Up thru his time their existed four distinct human races: red, white, yellow and black (and variations and multiple names for the same).

So Descent of Man is definitely the better book to read regarding man's evolution and conditions. But I digress from my main point, "Did Darwin say we humans descended from apes?" Well, no, I don't think so. What he wrote on page 895 of Descent was, "Man, as I have attempted to shew, is certainly descended from some ape-like creature." Which, makes much more sense as we now know, having findings of pre-Neanderthal, Neanderthal and Cro-magnon Man.

More to the point, I and millions of Baha'is and others, for example, maintain that although Man at one time certainly was an "ape-like creature," his uniqueness, his heritage and destiny, is much more than that of any animal, either now or in the dim past.

Best, Rod

Copyright Rodney Richards 2014</sup>

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