The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1876-02-05
THE PACIFIC
Commercial AOOertlser.
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 5.
Evolution Of Mankind.

DR.. Gerland, a pupil and disciple Of the emf
nent anthropologIst, Prof. TheodOr Waltz, has
lately published a volume (~reviewed in the Aca-
deuy) in which he works ingeniously at the prob
lens of evolution and civilization of mankind.
He assumes the position that man was developed
from n lower animal form and, using this as q
starting point, he endeavors TO determine the cir
cumstances which led the human being up
through the last stages of brute life. Although
granting that needs may have existed that were
an incentive to e~xertion, he believes that the es-
sential conditions of the progressive development
Of man were prosperity and leisure. This state
of we'll being depended upon an ample, continual
and accessible supply of food which supply, DR..
Gerland argues, was derived from the vegetable
rather than the animal world.
He considers that tree fruit, such as cocoanuts
and dates, with roots, such as potatoes and yams,
were not sufficiently abundant or nutritious to
furnish the necessary diet. Neither does he re-
gard the mixed fare Of existing wild tribes, con-
sisting Of berries, roots, insects, eggs, and an
irregular provision of fish and game, as enough
for the requirement. lie believes that nothing
less than grain suficed to elevate the progressive
animal to mans estate. He therefore suppOses
that in some wild region, where wild cereal
grasses were perpetual, the primitive tribe OF
creatures destined TO rise to humanity had their
abode. Here, munching at the ears, they gradu-
ally came to a stage of Intelligence in which they
threshed the grain by knocking it out against a
stone.
By observing how the seed fell and sp~routed
and, growing into q new plant, bore a fresh har-
vest Of grain, they learned to assist nature by
sowing the grain themselves. At about this
point in their mental development they acquired
the art of producing and using fire. And thus,
with abundant food, which secured comfort and
rest and developed muscle and brain, the tribe
of men was able to surpass all other races OF ami
mails in the struggle for existence and in the adj
vance upward.
The hypothesis that the agricultural stage was
the earliest in the history of mans civilization is
opposed to that most generally accepted by an
thropologists, namely that men lived on the food
now subsisting as wild tribes before they attained
the art of agriculture which led to q settled life.
But, in expOunding this theory, DR.. Gerland has
put forward many facts and ideas that will be
suggestive and stimulating to others engaged in
the same line of research. In particular, he has
done good service in giving prominence to the
view that mans origin and development depend
ed upon the supply of an especial kind Of food in
prehistoric periods.
BY this mode of nourishment,' - remarks DIR.
Gerland, eve distinguish, in the first place, be-
tween plants and animals. Better, more highly
organized food facilitated the development of
more highly organized beings and the striving
after particular kinds of nourishment, in many
respects, itself pointed out the way to develop
ment. Even the brain stands in the most exact
relation to the function of nOurishment. The
senses, eyes, tactile organs and afterwards smell
group themselves in the immediate proximity of
the mouth, SO as to be at once finders of food and
care-takers of the organism of its selection.
Thereby the nerve collar forms itself, and from
this, by the continued excitation of more lively
and active sensations is evolved the brain. This
formation can only be carried out by increased
plenty and security in the supply of food and,
vice versa, the more the first progresses, the more
it promotes the progress of the second. AS now
the brain becomes distinctly the center of nervous
life, it brings hearing also into its neighborhood
and thus the beauty of the human countenance is
ultimately based upon the animal function of
feeding. 1t was this which called into existence
the different characteristics of animals it was
this which, causing easier and richer assimilation
of serviceable molecules, raised man above the
beast"
DIR. Gerland does not conclude his argument
without debating at length the question OF the
original home of man. He carefully reviews the
claims of the different parts of the world to the
distinction of having given birth to the human
race, and rejects those instituted for America,
Africa, Australasia and the hypothetical CONT
nent of " Lemuria." Then, in consonance with
his theory that man was developed by feeding on
grain, he locates the earliest site of humanity in
Southwestern Asia, where the cereal plants were
first developed from wild grasses.