One of the common misconceptions from the first half of the 20^th century was that evolution ran along fixed rails and that by doing something very clever one could skitter up and down the evolutionary chain like it was some sort of biological cable car.  

In The Man Who Evolved (1931) by Edmond Hamilton, Dr. John Pollard discovers that he can speed up human evolution with a shower of cosmic rays.  Naturally, you wouldn't think that he'd be as daft as to try it out on himself first, but that's exactly what he does do and in short order he morphs his way from man to superman to giant brain.  Each point along the way he declares himself to have greater and greater intelligence, though he seems unable to notice that being a brain the size of a Mini would put a crimp in his social life. 

In the end, he evolves not into some sort of being of pure energy, put a small pool of pink protoplasm because evolution, for no adequately explained reason, goes in a circle, which only goes to show.

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