Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1900-10-30
MEN AND MONKEYS.
According to New Theory the Former
Existed First.

From the London Standard
Sensitive persons who object to being con-
frouted with their poor relations may find
"pmfort in the theory advanced by Prof.
,tisatsCh of / .ideiberg University, AID
summarized today by our Berlin CORE
- ndent, We are no longer bound to be-
E-ve that man is descended from apes.
The mystery of evolution has been cleared
~. the search for the missing link is rem
a'rvd futile by the learned doctors dis
r,very of the proper significance of a
T"USrle in the upper part of the thigh. The
short strand. as one part of this is called,
Is attached to the fbula, and is fitted with
d special nerve After years of investiga-
Lon. Herr klaatSch has convinced himself
that this short strand" is a rudmentary
I rm of a muscle common to a considera-
be number of mammals, such as mar
sur.Ials. carnivores and many rodents. In
fact. II is very frequently present; but
oily anthrOpOid apes and prehensile-tailed
American monkeys possess it in the same
r Ht!ned condition as man. Some climbing
features indeed have entirely lost it, such
q the lemurs of the old world. That indi-
Gates that the muscle cannot be service
aDle for life on trees, it's modification being
the result of disuse when the progressive
creature began to walk upright. Thus 1t
is an inheritance. common indeed to man
and apes, but derived from some remote
mammalian ancestor. So far from proving
the ape 10 be father of the man, 1t sug-
gests the contrary view. Both can claim
common ancestry in some long extinct
mammalian form. but that is all. Though
the savants may be right in inferring
from the fragmental remains of the Javan
PIthecanthropus, that II was either the
most man-l!ke of apes or the most ape like
OF men. the creature does not supply the
missing link in a pedigree beginning in a
simian and ending in homo sapiens.
The professor also tells US that the exist
ing apes are for the most part degenerate
forms. Are We then, to reverse the line Of
pedigree, and declare that old-time self
iLdulgent race of men have degenera ted
into apes. little Tom was taught, ac-
COrding TO the Water Babes?" But to
check any human conceit which he may
seem to have encouraged Herr Klaatsch
Informs Us that it is quite wrong to con-
slider man. as mammal. the most perfect
ly developed in every way. That is not
true Of his teeth and limbs; only in the
matter of brain is he facile princeps. Well,
it is d relief to get this admitted and as
for the other organs, We concede much to
animals which have to get their living by
cracking nuts or gnawing bones; We do not
profess to leap like tigers, run like deer, or
climb Ike gibbons In all these We grant
The advantage TO the savage and are aware
that an edeutalDus or nearly toothless be-
ing is to be the ultimate result of civliza-
tion.- But We suggest is not the professor
building up a very large supersUucture on
a rather small base? His argument though
1t comes to a different conclusion, reminds
US OF the famous controversy in which
whether the ape did or did not possess a
small structure called hippocampus in its
brain, for on that depended whether or no
the ape was the ''long-lost brother of
man. 1t is doubtful, indeed, whether the
professor has proved more than the most
thorough going evolutionist is ready TO
grant. The latter does not assert, so far
as We know, that man is descended from a
gorilla, or a chinpanZee, orang-
uuJang. He holds rather that, as some
times happens in the social scale, one
branch of family has greatly risen, while
all the others have remained children of
GIDEON. Charles Darwin stated this quite
clearly in The Descent of Man. and 1t is
stjI generally accepted. As an evolutionist
he admitted a kinship between all NAM
mails. since their pedigrees had a common
origin. Sometimes the parting had been
very remote, sometimes more recent The
plaryrhine and catarhine monkeys are
cousins of distant degree. while man is
nearer one of the latter, but nothing like =
cousin-german. In fact, to an evolutionist
il would seem strange for ancestors to be
fiourishing side by side with their off
spring, for nature works very slowly, and
VIII not be hurried over the origin of a spe-
CieS.