VI
THE MENTAL EVOLUTION OF MAN
The problems dealing with the make-up of the human mind and with the
evidences of mental evolution bring the student to matters of more vivid
human interest. Mental phenomena are so complex and intricate that it is
well-nigh impossible to analyze their history without a knowledge of the
principles derived from the broad study of evolution as a general
doctrine, where human prejudice is not so large a factor and where his
perspective is less affected by the proximity of the observer to his
facts. For these and other reasons the foregoing treatment of human
evolution has been confined to the purely structural characteristics of
man as a species and of human races as so many varieties of this type.
When the broad comparative methods of biological science are employed for
the elucidation of human anatomical facts, the result in this special
case, like that established through the study of the characteristics of
living things in general, is the proof that evolution gives the most
rational and natural explanation of the observed data. This being true,
the naturalist who turns from purely structural matters to human intellect
and its history, finds well-tried methods of inquiry already available,
and he approaches his further studies with a conviction that evolution,
having proved to be universal so far, in all probability will be found
equally true in the case of psychological phenomena.
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