The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1881-03-24

natl, to hear the popular eClenCe lecture
of Professor W. D. Cunning, of Boston,
on the Origin of Man." Professor Gun.
ming was introduced by Mr.. Barney.
Professor Cunning then delivered his
very interesting lecture, as follows:
THE ORIGIN OF MAN.
In Oriental fable l have read of race
of genii called Soors and Assoore. They
sat always by the seaside, and churned
the sea to bring forth the Amreeta, the
mystery of life. The Soors sat on one
sh re and hurled the ChurniDg.staff to
the Assoors, who sat on the other. We
are told that many irrelevant things
were turned out, as white elephants and
COWS, but the Amreeta did not come.
The fabist wrote for our own times.
Soors and Assoors are men, not genii,
and there is the sea of thought, not the
Indian Ocean.
1t is well if we are not all Soors not all
Assoors-well if we do not all stand on
the shore Of the sea of thought. Our
Amreeta IS the origin of man.
1t is fact of deep significance that in
the creation of a man the body passes
through forms and structures that are
merely animal.
The speaker drew a series Of brains,
all beginning on one pattern, and the
last eliminating in man. Mans brain
is the highest possible unfoldment Of the
plan. In it's stages of growth it passes
through each form below it. Does the
creation of man type the creation Of
man2 The method of science is COM
parison. To get mans place in the
scheme of nature we want the animal
next below him. A South Coast Austria
lian was drawn.
Compare them now in their range Of
faculties. Ask the men to count five.
He can count only three. His name for
three is poettarar-rarjncOaroaL. Is it any
wonder that he stops at three Ask him
about a Gcd. He doesn't know what
you mean aboutright and wrong he has
only the faintest conception Of what you
mean. He might say, "a man steals my
boomerang, that's wrong I steal a mans
boomerang, that's right" On the moral
side he scores well-would make good
operator in Wall street. Let him show
you his tools. The gorilla will show you
almost as good his house, the gorilla
will show you nest almost as complete.
You say the man can talk and the ami
NAL can not. We used to say that artiC'
ulate speech is the divine badge of hu.
manity. This is the way l find learned
Germans talking now. l find la German
sch olar saying; "Ifa pig were to stand
before me and open its mouth and say,
'Lo, am a pig would say, No, you
are not a pig. If you were pig you
could not say I am pig. You would
grunt, you would not talk Go your ways
go to Cincinnati, No, no; they couldn't
pork you, even in Cincinnati You
will say then that the man can reason
and the animal can not. Can not ?
Brahm, the German, is in the habit of
giving his monkeys loaf-sugar. One day
he took a live wasp and folded it in with
a lump of loaf-sugar and gave it to an
experienced old ape. He took it, tore off
the paper, and the wasp stung him on
the hand. From that day whenever that
German or any other man gave that or
any other monkey lump Of sugar
folded in paper he would hold it to his
ear and shake it to see whether there
was a wasp inside. The ape had told
his neighbors. They had reasoned about
it. The movement of the ape mind was
the same as yours would have been.
The ape generalzed. He said, IF one
man will cheat, every man will cheat l
will not trust mani
Well, you say there must be something
in the man there is not in the ape. A
something there is in you. Long ago, on
the tableland of Iran, between the Indus
and Euphrates, man woke to a deep
consciousness of the fact that his arm,
measured against the limb of tiger, is
weak, and he named himself "The Frail
One" That is the oldest name of man
recorded in the history of human speech,
Time passed, and man, on the same
tableland, woke to a deeper conscious.
ness of mortality and he named himself
THE Dying One" That is the second
name in the history of speech. Time
passed on, and thus Aryan man stood on
the shores of the Indian Ocean and
looked out on an expanse of water, deep
and enduring, and called it "The Sea-"
He looked within and found another
deep--a deep no plummet could sound,
no compass could sweep its bounding
shore-a deep fretted bv mightier storms
and anon spanned by brighter iris than
the deep of waters-and this inner deep |
he called 'The Soul" Sea and soul
they we're the same word. 7 me passed, |
and this Aryan became Greek, and |
saw that, at the outer deep pillows up to |
the persuasions of the moon 80 the inner
deep QSptreS, and he named himself |
Anthropos-he of the upturned eye.
Man alone is anthropos. The eye of the
brute is earthward tne spiritual eye of
man is skyward.
We turn from the roots of mind to
bodily structure. John Wesley called
,he ape a rough draft of man. Richard
Owen has called attention to the all
similitude between the frame
If man and the frame of men-like ape.
The similitude was drawn out and de-
jcribed, and it was shown that the re.
emblance between man and man like
lpe is 30 close that science cannot form a
distinct order for man based on bodily
structure. The history Of certain mem
,ers and organs were then sketched. 1t
vas shown that man carries many heir.
ooms of the animal in his body. We
AN not explain these faded structures
lnless we take them at their obvious
meaning. The ear had declined. Aborted
muscles are all about it-some to pull it
lp, others to pull it down, some to pull
{ forward, others to pull it backward.