Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1913-12-10
THE ORIGIN OF MAN.
Scientists Agree That He RESUMED
from Apes Craving for Flesh FOOD

SCtenrtSeS Agree tHat
from Apes Craving for Flesh rood
Tho existence of human beings on this
earth may be due, says Prof. CarVeth
Read of the University of Cambridge,
to an accidental liking for animal 1000
upon the part of an ape in the distant
ages This ape he argues, probably got
tired of living In the trees and suesist-
ing upon nuts leaves and fruit, and 1t
climbed down and began to seek hesn
and blood. Thereupon, according 10
Prof. Read nine progressive, evolution
airy changes occurred to the fiesh-sating
ape in the following order:
i. Life on the ground and beyond the
limits of the forest.
g. The erect gait as the normal mode
of progression, with all the changes of
bone, joint and muscle that make this
possible.
g. The frightening of the legs and
specialization of the feet.
A. The shortening of the arms and de-
velopment of the hands
5. The use of wrought weapons and
| snares.
g. Association and cooperation for the
purpose of hunting. especially the hunt
ing OF big game.
| 7. The beginnings of articulate speech
! as a means to such cooperation.
| g. Great increase of knowledge and in
| telligence as required by the change of
| life.
| g. Discovery of the way to produce fire
during the making of weapons of flint or
wood.
All the prominent characters, func-
| tional and structural, that distinguish
| man from the anthropoid apes, except his
! relative nakedness," says Prof Read,
| might be understood as consequences of
his having shown special liking for
animal food. Many primates eat various
sorts of animals, but only man can be
called carnivorous. Early art, magic
and religion owed much to the savage's
intense interest in animals"
| Prof. Harry Campbell of London Uni
yersity, also takes the view that man
owes his origin to an apes longing for
| animal food. MANS evolution from the
| ape" he says, has been essentially a
| mental evolution. Only a being pos
sessed of prehensile hands, capable of
giving effect to the dictates of mind,
| could evolve into man.
AN oyster endowed with the mind of
| Newton would in no way be advan-
| tageous in the struggle for existence It
\ was the abandonment of an arboreal
| Tor terrestrial life in the search after
| animal food, which determined mans
| evolution from the ape. While the car
| nivorous mammal was perfect butcher
| ing machine, endowed with the necessary
| instinct for seeming and stalking its
prey. and the necessary equipment of
muscle, tooth and claw for Selling and
destroying it, the prehuman ape. lacking
those endowments, but gifted with hands
and no small degree of intelligence. was
Obliged to rely upon those In hunting his
prey.
= For blind instinct he had to substitute
strategy; for natural weapons he had
| to substitute weapons made by hand
/ intelligence thus began to count In the
life struggle, and mental evolution was
correspondingly accelerated. The first
employment of crude weapons by the
/ few created new standard of mental
| fitness and, by the elimination of those
incapable OF attaining it, compelled a
leyeling up of the entire species to that
standard.
The evolving man. like his ape ances-
] tor, was polygamous. While in the early
/ homo simian times success in securing
wives rested essentially upon brute force
and courage, in process of time mental
excellence began to play it's part 1t
was the man combining a good physique
with high mental endowment who be-
came the tribal leader and secured the
largest number Of offspring to inherit his
| excellence.
! Similarly. intertribal warfare has led
to the eeaseless destruction of the least
orainy by the most brainy tribes. Re-
garding mans ultimate psychic destiny,
Intellectual evolution has ceased. not be-
cause it has reached its possible limit,
but because supernormal intelligence no
longer enhances the chance of survival
| "On the other hand, moral evolution ia
proceeding by the survival of superior
moral types; man, In short, tends to he.
come better, If not cleverer New York
| World
|