The Fall of Man; Or, The Loves of the Gorillas

'The Fall of Man' is a novel exploring the subject of evolution, with the rather controversial hypothesis that man in his current state is a far inferior creature than his Neanderthal ancestors. "Many parts of the world, less happy than the wilds of our beloved Africa, are inhabited by a feeble, smooth-skinned creature called Man. This unhappy animal is much vexed with creeds and theories and notions; and the one of these which has been longest and most deeply rooted in his mind is, that he is a fallen being… But the truth must be told sometimes; and the time has come when we must confess that man, weak, born without clothes—cruel, cowardly, and ungrateful man—is of our family; very remotely, I am happy to say, a kind of ten thousandth cousin, but still a direct descendant of our progenitors. From the high estate of gorilla-hood he has descended to that of manhood; and we are in a measure disgraced by his humiliation. This is the fall of man—that he has descended from monkey-hood to humanity…"