The Forrest City times., 1901-04-12
MEN AND MONKEYS.
Ne More Doubt a. to Which Existed Ffrxt-Men. According to
 New Theory.

GthNttANN NtASoAS Nho ObltAA AO Dt~ ing confronted with their poor rela- tions may find comfort in the theory advanced by Prof. Klaatsch. of Hei- delberg university. and summarized by our Belgian correspondent, says the London Standard. We are no | longer bound to believe that man is descended from apes. The mystery of evolution has been cleared up, the search for the missing link is rem dered futile by the learned doctors discovery of the proper significance of muscle in the upper part of his | thigh. The short strand. as one part of this is called, is attached to the | fibula, and is fitted with a special nerve. After several years of inves- | tigation, Herr Klaatsch has con- | vinced himself that this "short | strand" is a rudimentary form of | muscle common to a 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- cates that the muscle cannot be serv- | iceable for life on trees-its modifica- | tion being the result of disuse when the progressive creature begins to walk upright. Thus it is an inherit ance, common indeed to man and l I
 mammalian ancestor. So far from proving the ape to be father of the man, it suggests the contrary view | Both can claim a common ance stry 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 pitheeanthropus, 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.
 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 all old-time self indulgent race of men have degenerated into apes, as little Tom was taught, ac- cording to the Water Babies?" But to check any human conceit which he may seem to have encouraged Herr Klaatseh informs us that it IS quite wrong to consider man, as a mann maj, 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. We'll. 1t IS relief to get this admitted. and as for the other organs, we con eede 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 like gibbons. In all these we grant the advantage to the savage, and are aware that an edentulous or nearly toothless being is 10 be the ultimate result of civilization But. we suggest, is not the professor building up very large superstruc- ture on a rather small base? His argument. though it comes to diff l famous controversy in winch Huxley and Owen once figured, as to whether the ape did or did not possess small structure called hippocampus in its brain, for on that depended whether or no the ape was the "long-lost brother" of man. Ii is doubtful. i'm deed, whether the professor has proved more than the most thorough going evolutionist is ready 10 grant The latter does not assert. so far as we know, that man Is descended from gorilla, or chimpanzee, or an orang-outang. He holds rather that as sometimes happens in the social scale, one branch of a family has greatly risen, while all the others have remained children of Gibeon Charles Darwin stated this quite clearly in ''rhe Descent of Man." and it is still generally accepted. As ar evolutionist. he admitted a kinshir between all mammals. since their pedigrees had common origin Sometimes the parting had been very remote, sometimes more recent. The platyrhine and catarhine monkey. are cousins of distant degree, while man is a nearer one of the latter, bu, nothing like a cousin -ge erman. IT fact, to an evolutionist. it would seem strange for ancestors to be fourishing side by side with their offspring, for nature works very slowly and will not be hurried owe, the origin of species.