Williston graphic. (Williston, Williams County, N.D.) 1895-1919, 1901-01-17
MEN LIVED BEFORE APES.
Darwin's DisnsreeableT Theory OF the
Origin of Species Successful
~ Controversial.

Origin of Species Successful
ly Controversial.
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. Me 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 muscle in the
upper part of the thigh. The short
strand. as one part of this is called,
is attached to the fibula, and is fitted
with special nerve. After several
years ct investigation Herr Klaatsoh
has convinced himself that this short
strand" is 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
lemurs of the old world. That indi-
Gates that the muscle cannot be serv-
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
proving 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 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 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 men have degenerated into
apes, as little Tom was taught, &C.
cording to the 'Water Babies?" But
to check any human conceit which
ne may seem to have encouraged Herr
Klaatsch informs us that It is quite
wrong to consider man, as mann
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 facle 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
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 rath-
er small base? His argument,
though it comes to 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 small structure
called hippocampus in its brain, for
on that depended whether or not the
ape was the "long-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
man is descended from gorilla or q
chimpanzee. or an orang-outang. He
holds, rather, that, as sometimes hap
| pens 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 ''rhe Descent of
Man. and it is still generally accept
ed. As an evolutionist he admitted
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 distant degree, while man
| is a nearer one of the latter, but
nothing like 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 slowl!"
and will not be hurried over the origin
of species.