ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the work of Anthropology, especially as assisted by Ethnology, in showing what the evolution of human civilization has been. Ever since the beginning of man's effective thinking upon the great problems around him, two antagonistic views have existed regarding the life of the human race upon earth. The first of these is the belief that man was created "in the beginning" a perfect being, endowed with the highest moral and intellectual powers, but that there came a "fall", and, as its result, the entrance into the world of evil, toil, sorrow, and death. On the other hand appeared at an early period the opposite view—that mankind, instead of having fallen from a high intellectual, moral, and religious condition, has slowly risen from low and brutal beginnings. Typical of the simplicity of belief in "the Fall" cherished among the Reformers is Luther's declaration regarding Adam and Eve.
