The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1898-11-25
GLADIATORS WERE PIGMIES,
Evolution of Man in Its Physical As
pect Shows Him a Giant.


Prof. Alpheus s. Packard. vice-presi-
dent of Brown university, in his address
before the American Association for the
Advancement of Science few weeks
ago, opened uD 4 most interesting field
for specua ton. At the end of mas
terly discourse on the evolution of man
from primitive fishes Prof. Packard
pointed out that evolution had not reached
its eliminating point in the civilized man
of today
What, then, he asks, may be expected
of the civilized man of coming ages?
AS evolution goes on what progress and
development may be expected of the hui
man race in future centuries? If man
as he exists today has developed from
the lowest order of prehistoric fish, what
mental, moral and physical triumphs may
be expected in the ages to come?
&, Science mas looked back to prehistoric
times and traced the descent of man
step by step through the various ages
mated that it has taken 100000, 900
years to develop a civilized human being
from the earliest and lowest forms of ami
NAL life.
Prof. w. J. MCGEE of the United
States bureau of ethnology of Washing
ton, points out that the evolution Of man
is going on all about us at the present
luOlIleut. lie says.
'Take. for example. the hand. That
gna t; is in continual progress of modi-
hcation among all peoples, whether saw
age. harbarous or enlightened. It is
steadily becoming more efficient instru-
ment.
But compare the hand of the savage
with that of matchmaker and it will
be noticed that the latter is able to make
ever SO many more movements than the
former. What is more important, these
movements are made with much higher
degree of precision. A savage could not
hnlsh with file a suuare-sha bolt,
however much his eye might be trained.
mus we find great differences i'll the
hands of human beings, just as we dis
cover difference, vet more marked. be-
tween the hand of the lowest man and
the band of an ape. This is a matter of
great Importance, inasmuch as human de-
veiopment is to a great extent manual
development. Brain development is the
ana brain have gone together in the
process Of their evolution. They are CO.
ordinate in the closest way"
LIZ. "A. II. Brown, an eminent authori-
ty on physical culture and muscular de-
velopment, shows that even in our phys
lgue we are, a bigger, stronger race to-
day than the ferocious, beef-eating fight
eIH VI England III Olden times or the
tough, tireless warriors who made up the
Roman legions of the early Caesars, who
fought and conquered the barbarous
Gauls. DIR. Brown reminds us that we
are accustomed to think of the Roman
gladiators and the old Greek athletes as
physical giants who could not be matched
by the athletes of modern times, and yet
Dr. Brown points out that John l.. Sui
Ivan. who stands less than feet tall,
searched in vain among the armor of the
rover of London for suit of mail which
ne could put on, and later on, when in
Rome, Sullivan was unable to find in all
the arnor of the Roman soldiers single
piece, which he could squeeze his arm
into.
AS to the moral development of man,
Rev: DR.. Parkes Cadman says:
1.-The law of God-the law of the
righteous--is working out it's ends and
the salvat ton of man will surely be accom-
Pushed. How far away may be the COM
plete restoration of the whole world I do
not know. Perhaps it is ages away.
'"There will be time some day when
there will be no jails, no prisons, no asy-
lMnls, no guards over the children of men.
They will have melted away and Il better
and purer life and grander, perfect
Christian people will walk I'M their stead
The world will then know 10 sin, no sor-
row, no pains. It will be the reward
i'll life that the Bible speaks of, and base
ness and Wickedness and sin will be no
more" ~.