HUMAN LIFE
By
S. S. KNIGHT
NEW YORK
R. F. FENNO & COMPANY
18 EAST 17TH STREET
Copyright, 1910,
By S. S. KNIGHT
CONTENTS
| CHAPTER | PAGE | |
|---|---|---|
| I. | The Habitat of Man | 9 |
| II. | The Length of Time during which Man has Existed | 29 |
| III. | The Physical Limitations of Existence | 56 |
| IV. | The Purpose of Life | 76 |
| V. | Knowledge and Education | 99 |
| VI. | Religion and Ethics | 120 |
| VII. | Love | 156 |
| VIII. | Problems of the Future | 180 |
DEDICATION
This volume is dedicated to my Motherand my Wife—the two women whose influencehas most largely shaped my life, andwhose companionship has afforded me somuch happiness. It was written with thehope that it might be of value to my twochildren, and may they find as much happinessin life as has the author.
CHAPTER I
The Habitat of Man
In reviewing the facts concerning humanity,which are well authenticated at the presentdate, with the object of getting a compositeview of the greatest of all “worldriddles”—“Life”—possibly nothing tendsso largely to expand our mental horizon asa study of the earth itself or man’s place ofabode. The ideas of the educated and culturedmind, at the beginning of the twentiethcentury, upon cosmogony, are necessarilyof such a character that man’s heretoforeundisputed boast of being the objectiveand acme of creation or evolution isforced into that great mass of theorieswhich science has proven to be absolutelyuntenable. Since the relative importanceof the factors of heredity and adaptationhas become known, the environment, or conditionssurrounding man’s existence in[10]times past, is of exceptional importance, as,from an understanding of these prehistoriclimitations, we are better able to judge whatmust have been the achievement of the individualand the race than we could be whenin ignorance of th