Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1879-03-07
What Kin Are We to Apes?
Editors HindicatOr-

-LUGtUTS HtRlteCUtUT-
Excuse me, Mr.. Editor, for stating
sum, and then saying at once that If the
answer was given in plea figures it would
fill two solid pages of your PAPER. OF
course, then, 1. do not intend to work it
out, nor to ask any OF your readers to do
so. But a simple statement OF it. as sug-
gested iii recent review of Darwlnism,
will give practical hint as to the value OF
the evolution theory.
People have frequently noticed instances
Of what Darwin calls ''revelsion to the
ancestral type" Thus, n a family of,
say eight children, seven may have black
eyes and hair while the eighth will be a
blonde, with light hair and blue eyes. 1t
will be found on inquiry that these blonde
features belonged to some ancestor, who,
perhaps, lived so long before as to have
been almost forgotten. There was an In
stance Of this sort in the family of the
patriarch Isaac. One of his sons was
s'smooth man," while the other was as
hairy as a wild animal. Here, according
to the Evolutionists, there WAS Il reversion
| to the type of the ancestral anthropoid
ape, which was Il hairy animal. But the
| question at once comes up-ilOW much
| apes blood did Esau have i'll his veins?
| The quantity may be determined by a
| simple, yet nearly interminable calcula-
| ton in arithmetic.
Thus, man has one 2,04Sth part of the
blood of that ancestor who lived twelve
| generations before him. And SO the pro.
| portion of blood inherited from an an
cestor who lived 5000 years ago would be
one part in LIS, 700 ,203. 157 ,979 1881 1885,
633, 757, 1926. But 5000 years ARE with tho
Darwinites but as yesterday when it is
past. With them ten or fifteen millions OF
years, more Or less, are too short dura-
| ton to affect results materially They do
i not deal in precise dates at all. And so IL
! is impossible to say how N ch time had
| elapsed between the birth OF Esau and the
date at which the ape became sufficiently
developed to be called d man. But say
| that IN round numbers it was thirty mil
lions of years. Then the proportion of
monkeys blood'in Esau would have to be
| expressed Ivy q fraction, with for the nu-
merator, aud for the denomin<tor close
row of small figures that, wriIten on the
| curb-stoue, would reach from Iainess cor
| ner to the Institution gate s.,
| What wonderful thing apes blood
must be. 1t is certainly the in,st potent
| agent at work III the universe One drop
| Of musk will perfume a room for a centu-
ry-buJ musk is evanlscence itself COM
| pared to monkey blood. Ihe hest human
| blood cannot transmit its nobe qualities
even to the next generation. Great and
good men rarely leave SOUS worthy of their
sires. Yet an lnfnitesimal, l. cOnceivably
| small trace of this brute blood will, at the
end of so 600 600 Of years bring out thick
crop of hair and make a man L semble The
primeval ape. 1t is sad enou. ia to know
that bad qualities are undOuh eddy trans
-mitted from father to son, ana some men
are SO degraded that we cannot help think
ing that
Their ancient but ignoble blood
Has crept through scoundrels since the fiood.'
But what is that compared to lie heredl-
tary misfortune Of a gentle who rolls
up his sleeve and sees on his arm the NOR
tifying proof that, like his forefathers OF
10000 900 years ago, he is stil-a beast.
And this is Darwinism "a specimen OF
the ''exact thought that CLAIMS to have
found out that Moses did not know what
he was talking about when he wrote the
book Of Genesis. q. A.