The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-12-14
KRAOlS LESSON.

Krao has been here, and with her came the
old question, what is the relation of man to
the lower animals7 We admit that Krao is an
extremely interesting being; that she has a
hairy body, long, straight, black, coarse hair on
her head, only rudimentary aural and nasal
cartilages and abundant space in her cheeks
for candy and nuts; that she does not use the
thumb in grasping and can bend her fingers
to the back of her hand She is curious
creature, whether regarded as a 'freak" Of
nature, or as a representative of race of men,
But after all Krao is not more strange Great
ure than the Bosjeman woman brought to
France in 1915 and known to the world as
THE Hottentot Venus" and made familiar
to anatomists by the autopsy and drawings of
Cuvier and De Blainville.
Krao is human being in every meaning of
the phrase Humanity is not mere matter
of hair, erect posture, opposable thumb and
plantigrade feet The difference between
man and the brutes is not so much physical
as it is psychical. He is in substance and
structure one with the lower animals. but by
the marvellous endowment of ineligible and
rational speech he has accumulated and
organized the experience which is lost with
tie cessation of individual life with other ami
mails 1t is this faculty which has made man
what Mr. Huxley denominates him-the Alps
and Andes of the living world
Krao possesses the power of speech; she
converses intelligently in English and German;
she is human being before thelaw, and with
in the definition of the zoologist. The ''miss-
ing link" remains still to be found. A child of
eight years who replies, on being asked if her
exhibiting attendant and physician liked little
girls, Eyes, and the bigger they are the bet
ter he likes them,' is not far different from
other children in mental aptitude and possibi-
ity even if black fiat-nosed and woolly. The
The study of such low races as we find in the
extremes of the continents, in Patagonia
South Africa and Australia, may assist in de
termining whether man has descended
from some generalized type which gave
rise to series of animals eliminating
in monkeys, apes and man, respectively, or
whether he is a direct descendant of forms
like the chimpanzee and gorilla. AS we as
cend the mammalian series, we find tenden-
cy to an extreme specialization Of those parts
ministering to the intellectual demands of the
creature, until in man we find the erect posi-
ton, and that the arms have passed from the
loeomotor to the prehensile series Man is the
EXTREMIST illustration of this law of anterior
capitalization and posterior abbrevation. On
the other hand man retains many of the char
acters of the primitive mammalian type Of
the eocene period even to the fve-toed
plantigrade foot and the original quadrituber-
culate molar. His structural superiority con-
sists solely in the completely and size of his
BRAIN in which respect the differences between
the lowest races of men and the highest an
thropoid apes are immense.
But, however originated, whether by
divinely ordered processes of biological laws
or by an Independent creative act, the result,
whether strangely formed as Krao, or beauti
full and symmetrical as Apollo, he is being
of whom the fact that he is physically an
animal is the least important Characteristic of
his nature In man We have being capable
Of studying and, to some extent eompre