[title: From THE DESCENT OF MAN, Chapter 1, by Charles Darwin]

Thus we can understand how it has come to pass that man and all other vertebrate animals have been constructed on the same general model, why they pass through the same early stages of development, and why they retain certain rudiments in common.  Consequently we ought frankly to admit their community of descent:  to take any other view, is to admit that our own structure, and that of all the animals around us, is a mere snare laid to entrap our judgment.  This conclusion is greatly strengthened, if we look to the members of the whole animal series, and consider the evidence derived from their affinities or classification, their geographical distribution and geological succession.  It is only our natural prejudice, and that arrogance which made our forefathers declare that they were descended from demi-gods, which leads us to demur to this conclusion.  But the time will before long come, when it will be thought wonderful that naturalists, who were well acquainted with the comparative structure and development of man, and other mammals, should have believed that each was the work of a separate act of creation.

[ from Project Gutenberg]