The Worthington advance., 1900-12-28
1IEN LIVED BEFORE APES.


Sensitive persons who object to be-
ing confronted with their poor rela-
tions may find comfort in. the theory
advanced by Prof: Klaatsch, OF Heidel-
berg university, { says the London
Standard. We are no longer bound
tofbelieve that man IL descended
from apes. .rhe mystery Of evolution
has been cleared up, the search for
the missing link is rendered futile by
the learned Doctors discovery: of the
proper significance of a muscle in the
upper part Of the thigh. Tho short
strand, as one part of this is called,
10 attached to the fibula, and is fitted
with . special nerve. After several
years of investigation Herr Klaatsch
has convinced himself that this ''short
strand" is q rudimentary form of
muscle common to considerable
number Of mammals, such as mar
supials, carnivores and many rodents.
In fact, it IL very frequently present,
but only anthropoid apes and pre-
hensile-tailed American monkeys pos.
sess It in the same modified condition
n man: Some climbing creatures in
deed, have entirely lost it, such as the
fsinurs of the old world. That indi-
cates that the muscle cannot be serv-
iceable for life on trees. its 1nodifca-
tion being the result Of dsuse when
tho progressive creature began to
walk upright Thus it is ain Inherit
ance, common indeed to man and
apes, but derived from some remote
mammalian ancestor. 10 far from
proving the ape to be father of tho
man, it suggests the contrary view.
Both can claim q 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 it was either
the most manlike Of apes or the most
apelike Of men, the creature does not
supply the missing link in pedigree
beginning in q simian and ending in
homo sapiens:.
The professor also tells US that the
existing apes are for the most part
degenerate forms. Are we, then, to
reverse the line of pedigree and de-
clare that an old-time self-indulgent
race of meh have degenerated into
apes, AZ little Tom was taught, ac-
cording to the "Water Babies?": But
to check any human conceit which
he may seem to have encouraged Herr
Klaatsch informs us that it is quite
wrong to consider man, as q NAM
NAL, the most perfectly developed in
every way. That. is not true of his
teeth and limbs; only in the matter
Of brain is he facile princeps. Well,
1t is 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 gnaw-
ing bones; we do not profess to leap
like tigers, run like deer or climb
like gibbons. In all these we grant
the advantage of the savages, and are
aware that an edentalous or nearly
toothless being is to be the ultimate
result of civilization. But, we sug-
gest, is not the professor building up
a very large superstructure on a rath-
er small base? His argument,
though it comes to q different con-
clusion, reminds me of the famous
controversy in which Huxley and Oar
win once figured as to whether the
ape did not possess a small structure
called a hippocampus in It's brain, for
on that depended whether or not the
ape was the ''long-lost brother" Of
man. It is doubtful, indeed, whether
the professor has proved more than
the most thoroughgoing evolutionist
is ready to grant. The latter does
not assert, so far az we know, that
man is descended from 4 gorilla or q
chimpanzee, or an orang-outang. He
holds, rather, that, az sometimes hap
pens in the social scale, one branch
Of family has greatly risen, while
all the others have remained children
of Gibeon.: Charles Darwin stated
this quite clearly in THE Descent of
Man," and it is still generally accept
ed. As an <evolutionist he admitted
a kinship between all mammals, since
their pedigrees had q common origin.
Sometimes the parting had been very
remote, sometimes more recent. The
platyrhine and catarhine monkeys are
cousins Of a distant degree, while man
is nearer one Of the latter, but
nothing like a. cousin-german. In
fact, to an evolutionist, it would not
seem strange for ancestors to be -four
ishing side by side with their off,
spring, for nature works very SLOWLY
and will not be hurried over the origin
of a species.
GOOD BUSINESS IN BAIT.