Evgeny Panov, the prominent Russian ethologist, has greatly contributed to the study of the behavior of vertebrates and the comparative analysis of animal and human communication. In his book, he raises numerous questions relating to human evolution, cultural evolution, the origins of language, and especially the qualitative distinction of man compared to animals. Panov is a fierce opponent of sociobiology, human ethology, and the gradualist theory of the emergence of language. He refutes the views of many scholars, guilty, as he believes, of biological bias in the study of human behavior and of anthropomorphism in the approach to animal behavior. In the opinion of the reviewer, who is generally sympathetic to the author’s ideas, much of this criticism is warranted, but much stems from overstatements and somewhat biased attitudes. Human ethology, for one, is not part of sociobiology, and its conclusions sometimes agree with the author’s views. Panov’s general conclusion is that man as a generic being has no biological “nature” (and hence no hereditary burden to cope with) whereas each single person does have a “nature” and may be burdened with adverse predispositions. In his view, this largely accounts for the paradox formulated in the title of the book. The reviewer considers this conclusion a departure from the principles advocated by the author himself.