Knoxville journal. [volume] (Knoxville, Iowa) 1874-1986, 1875-10-14
Man Not Degenerate.

There never was delusion with less
evidence for it, except permanent i'm.
preston among mankind, which is often
the result, not of accumulated experience,
but of an ever-renewing discomfort with
the actual state Of things. There is not
the slightest evidence anywhere that man
was ever bigger, stronger, swifter or
more enduring under the same condi-
ton of food and climate than he is
now.
As to bigness the evidence is positive.
Modern Egyptians are as big as the mum
mles who were conquerors in their day,
and modern Englishmen are .bigger.
There are not in existence thousand
coats. of-armor which an English regiment
could put on. Very few noderns can use
ancient swords because the hits are too
small for their hands. Endless wealth
and skill were expended in picking gladi-
ators, and there is no evidence that man
among them was as big or as strong as
Shaw. No skeleton, no statue, no pict-
ure indicates that men in general were
ever bigger. The Jews of to-day are as
large as they were in Egypt, or larger.
The people of the Romagna have all the
bearing and more than the size of the Ro-
man soldiery. No feat is recorded as
usual with Greek athletes which English
acrobats could not perform now.
There is no naked savage tribe which
naked Cornishmen or Yorkshiremen could
not strangle. No race exists of which
thousand men similarly armed would de-
feat an English, or German, or Russian
regiment of equal numbers. Nothing is
recorded of our forefathers here In En-
gland which Englishmen could not do,
unless 1t be some teats Of archery, which
were the result of long training of the
eye for generations. The most civilized
and luxurious family that ever existed,
the European royal caste, is physically as
big, as healthy, and as powerful as any
people of whom we have any account
that science can accept Theirs French
man is Casar's Gaul in all bodily condi-
tons and with an increased power of
keeping alive, which may be partly owing
to improved conditions of living, but is
probably owing still more to developed
vitality. There is no evidence that even
the feeble races are feebler than they be-
came after their first acclimatization.
The Bengalee was what we know him
! 800 years ago, and the Chinaman was
represented on porcelain just rs he is now
before the birth of Christ. No race ever
had had no advantage of climate, and till
lately no particular advantage of food.
Physical condition depends upon living
advantages, and why should a race better
fed, better housed than il ever was before
degcneratef Because II eats corn instead
OF berriesS Compare the Californian and
the Digger Indian. Because it wears
clothesy The wearing of clothes, If bur-
densome--which the experience of army
doctors in india as TO the best costume
for marching makes excessively doubtful,
they declaring unanimously that breech-
less men suffer from varicose veins as
men wearing trousers do not-must OPP
crate as a permanent physical training.
You carry weight habitually. Because
they keep indoosy Compare English
professionals with Tasmanian sayages,
living in identically the same climate, but
living out of doors
The conditions Of civilization not only
donot prohibit Capt. Webb, who would
have out.walked, outswam, or stranged
any German that Tacitus ever romanced
about, but they enable him to live TO sew
enty instead Of dying at forty.hve, rs 1000
years ago he, then probably q slave bred
for the arena, would have done.
That the human race, even under the
best conditions, advances very little In
physical capacities is true, but then 1t is
true also that those conditions are fatal TO
the most powerful of the old improving
forces the survival Of the fittest. Still an
advance is perceptible in vital power, and
we question whether Greek swimmer
would ever have crossed from Dover to
Calais just rs strongly as we question
whether the anc lent world ever possessed
a horse which would have achieved
place at EPSON. Why should men grow
feeble in civilization any more than horses'
--LOhd0a Spectator.