St. Landry clarion. (Opelousas, La.) 1890-1921, 1901-01-12
MEN LIVED BEFORE APES,
Darwin's DisagreeabIe Theory of the
Origin Of Species Successful
" Confroyerted.

Origin of Species Successful
" Confroyerted-
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
to believe that man is 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. The short
strand, as one part of this is called,
is attached to the fbula, and is fitted
with a special nerve. After several
years of investigation Herr Klaatsoh
has convinced himself that this short
strand" is a rudimentary form Of
muscle common to considerable
number of mammals, such as mar
supials, carnivores and many rodents.
In fact, it is very frequently present,
but only anthropoid apes and pre-
hensile-tailed American monkeys pos
sess it in the same modified condition
as man. Some climbing creatures in
deed have entirely lost it, such as the
iemurs of the old world. That indi-
Gates that the muscle cannot be sery-
iceable for life on trees, its modifica-
ton being the result of disuse when
the progressive creature began TO
walk upright. Thus it is an Inherit
ance, common indeed to man and
apes, but derived from some remote
mammalian ancestor. So far from
growing the ape to be father of the
man, it suggests 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 Jayan
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 a pedigree
beginning in simian and ending in
homo sapiens.
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 men have degenerated into
apes, as little Tom was taught, ac-
cording to the water Babies p But
TO check any human conceit which
orr
Ktaatsch informs us that it is quite
wrong to consider man, as a mann
nal, the most perfectly developed in
every way. That is not true of his
teeth and limbs; only in the matter
.sf brain is he facile princeps. Well,
it 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
ike tigers, run like deer or climb
ike 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-
sssest, is not the professor building up
D very large superstructure on rath-
er small base? His argument.
though it comes to a different con-
eIusior4 reminds me of the famous
controversy in which Huxley and Dar-
win once figured as to whether the
ape did not possess a small structure
called a hippoeampus in its brain, for
IN that depended whether or not the
ape was the sIong-lost brother" OF
man. 1t 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 as we know, that
rlan is descended from a gorilla or a
ehi1npanzee, or an orang-outang. He
holds, rather, that, as sometimes hap
pens in the social scale, one branch
OF a family has greatly risen, while
afl 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 a 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 a 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
;shing side by side with their off
spring, for nature works very slowl..-
and will not be hurried over the origin
of a species.