Descent of Man Since Their

Descent of Man

Since their earliest history, humans have been intrigued with their origins. Prehistoric cultures developed creation myths that tell of a separate creation of man and of the domination of man over the rest of the animal world. The Roman statesman Cicero wrote of gods, universe and the creation of life on earth for humans. It was not until the late 1700s and early 1800s that human development was studied from a scientific perspective, especially by Jean-Baptiste Chevalier de Lamarck. However, it was Charles Darwin who revolutionized thought about evolution, first with the book Origin of Species and, more closely connected with humans, the Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex. This second book, published in 1871, specifically looked at how humans evolved from the same ancestors as apes in terms of society and morality. It completely altered the concept of human nature and started a controversial debate that continues to this day.

According to the biography the Life of a Tormented Evolutionist: Darwin (1991), Charles Robert Darwin was born and raised in Shrewsbury, England, in a family that was already interested in the sciences. His grandfather Erasmus Darwin, a physician and scientist, theorized the first ideas on evolution, and his father was also doctor. Although Darwin started medical school, he and his family both realized that this was not the field for him. He went instead to ministry school and began to learn about zoology and geography and became very interested in the topic. It was in 1831, however, that his life completely changed. He was asked to share the captain's responsibility aboard the ship H.M.S. Beagle, which was taking a two-year survey of the coast of South America.

It was on this voyage that Darwin first conceived of the theory of evolution. He said in his first book Origin of Species (1859): "When on board H.M.S. Beagle as naturalist, I was much struck with certain facts in the distribution of the organic beings inhabiting South America, and in the geological relations of the present to the past inhabitants of that continent." He conceived that life, evolves by a process called "natural selection," or the process where favorable genetic traits become more common in successive generations of a population of reproducing organisms.

Although this theory totally impacted the world, Darwin's second book the Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871) began a major debate, especially between religion and science. As he stated in the conclusion of his book, "The main conclusion here arrived at, and now held by many naturalists who are well competent to form a sound judgment is that man is descended from some less highly organized form."

He even theorized that intelligence and emotion could develop through natural selection.

However, he also stressed the difference between humans and lower animals. Man has a conscience and moral sense. In Chapter 4 he states: "any animal whatever, endowed with well-marked social instincts, the parental and filial affections being here included, would inevitably acquire a moral sense or conscience, as soon as its intellectual powers had become as well, or nearly as well developed, as in man."

In many ways Darwin's second book is of much more interest than the Origin of Species. When reading the Descent of Man it is easy to see how much this book must have impacted everyone at the time from the general public, to scientists to the clergy. It must have been fascinating to be living at this time when Darwin opens the doors to consider that man's present society, physiology and psychology all evolved from lower animals. The discussions that took place between different factions must have been very heated.