Serpent-Worship, and Other Essays, with a Chapter on TotemismWake, C. Staniland (Charles Staniland)
Religion
Serpent-Worship, and Other Essays, with a Chapter on Totemism
Wake, C. Staniland (Charles Staniland)
Phallicism; Serpent worship; Totemism
The difficulties attendant on theories such as those of Mr. Murphy and
Mr. Wallace, and the unsatisfactory explanation afforded by the theory
of evolution, as usually understood, of the origin of man, have led
me to the opinion that nature as a whole is organic, and that man is
the necessary result of its evolution. Not only so, however; man must
be viewed as the real object of the evolution of nature viewed as a
living organism. Without him nature itself would be imperfect, and all
lower animal forms must, therefore, be considered as subsidiary to the
human organism, and as so many stages only towards its attainment.
But if living nature is an organic whole, its several parts must be
intimately connected. Hence the numerous correspondences between man
and the higher mammals cannot be accidental or even merely designed
similarities. They betoken an actual and intimate connection between
the organisms presenting them, and such an one as is consistent only
with a derivation of one from the other. This view differs from that
of Mr. Darwin, not in the fact of man’s derivation from the ape, but
in the mode and conditions under which it has taken place. Derivation,
by virtue of an inherent evolutional impulse, is totally different
from simple descent, aided by natural selection. In the latter case
the appearance of man may be described as in some sense accidental;
in the former, not only is it necessary, but it is that for which all
evolution has taken place, the only condition, in fact, under which
evolution was possible.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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