My aim in this paper will be to present as concisely as possible the problems involved in Man's Place in Nature, and to consider briefly how far an evolution theory contributes towards the solution of these problems.

Needful preliminaries can be disposed of briefly. We are agreed that evolution is “a change from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to a definite, coherent heterogeneity, through continuous differentiations and integrations.” We are agreed that this process is to be taken as applicable in the history of matter and motion, and afterwards in the history of organised existence, raising the whole problem of biology. We do not require here to linger over the transition from the one to the other, as all requirements are met by accepting life and its laws as facts, and acquiescing in Darwin's hypothesis of one or more primordial germs.