The St. Johns herald., 1895-12-28
CHANGES IN MAN.
seaxtling Developments in the ! Physical Structure.
0ederEoing Mental Metamorphosls as
 WelI-Changes In Customs Following | tn the Wake of Intellectual Improvement.

! It is a fact we are assured of by paleontologists and antLropologistst that primeval man not only had four more teeth than men now have but had fewer bones in the skull, and less Holdings or convolutions Of the brain. The skull, too, has changed according to environ ments and use from an. oval to glob ular shape, or to a compromise of the two.
 The jaw has rctreated as the front braln has protruded. The tearing tuslx teeth have shortened up, and are neat ly and gently inclosed in the mouth.
 Ears, from being pointed and nova ble like horses ears, have become rounded and firmly fastened to the head. They are no longer the most important organs as they were to the river driftlnen to enable them to hear the approach of danger from all sides.
 The nostrils, from being open and alert, have closed up to outside affairs to great extent. and serve mainly as conduits and and as indicators of men, tai emotion. The eyes arc shortening in their rance of vision, and adapting themselves to studious race. All the senses were once intensely more acute, and the tendency is now steadily to lose more and moro of their capability to gather in the world of sounds and sights, except as these arc correlated into logic-that is, we can no longer tell poisons by taste and track our enemies by scent, or distinguish dan gers by the rustles in the air.
 Occasionally child is born with pe- culiar gifts of an organic sort, and can move his ears freely or shake his scalp. He does not use this faculty as it was originally designed, to shake off flies or dust; indeed, it seems to be a useless reversion to generally disused type.
 Such changes in our general physical frame, says the Boston Traveller, are startling and suggestive, but no more important than the mental and moral changes that are as demonstratable. Our ancestors were indubitably carniv- orous, to the degree of cannibalism. The instinct for savage beasts and revelry, involving bloodthirsty disre- gard of human suffering, may turk in us yet.
 The history of the Stanley expedition suggests that positive saragery is latent in us, in such degrees that the absence of restraints of civi iza.;on may cause 1t suddenly to blaze with ferocity; yet we certainly are .TaTgf1rmcd to deep adherence for customs that our fore fathers lived up to without qualm.
 Changes in custon1s are simpler than changes in organic structure, but both are easily possible. The rudimentary tail is still in our possession, and have no doubt that if advantage could be found in it's development we could get back to this appendage in its fullness. It would not be impossible to develop Q race of men with tails if tails could be nsed. Certainly highly civilized races have lapsed in moral and intelligence to savage and animal conceptions of life. Such changes grow together and are interlinked
 As the eye and the ear are less oc- cupied in detecting the approach of dangerous foes, they arc more occupied In listening to the sorrows of our fel- lows. The pathos and sympathy of . noble eye, the keen intellectually of a students nose, are part of the evolu- tion; the organ changes, and at the same time exchanges purpose and power.
 Darwin says man may be excused for feeling some pride at having risen, though not by his own exertions, to : the very summit of the organic scale; and the fact that he has thus risen, in- stead of having been aboriginally placed, there, may give him hope of a still higher destiny ia the future.