The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1916-12-09
. POPULAR APoLoeErIcs.
Adapted from the German of Rev.
Peter Mikes, S. j., by Rev.
James Watcher.
LII, Fossil Human Skulls.

WHICH Ndo uu6 UP 1cOOJ IhO LhSAH1
the Cro-Magnon skulls and other fos-
sill remains of man testify to the ami
NAL origin of man.
Answer: II THE age of the much
discussed skulls of the caves of Paw
land E, Engis, EngihOul, and
Spy near Liege :, Aurignac,
Cro-Magnon, Bruniquel is
doubtful; the skull of Cannstatt :.
is certainly of later date. The
famous skull fragment of the Neander-
thai man is certainly that of micro
cephalus tone having an abnormally
small head, resulting in idiocy), as
Virchow has proved*, and its diluvial
pertaining to flood age is not proved
in the least. .VirchOw also eStab-
lished the fact that this skull is
diseased. LII reality there remain
only the diluvial remains of man
whose age is established: a skull of
Dino near Chiana in Tuscany, skull
of Egisheim in Alsace, q lower jaw of
the cave of Naulette near FurfOoz in
Belgium and fragment of a jaw of
the cave of Schipka in Maehren.. This
material is sufficient to determine a
race; but human remains of a reliable
age of the diluvium deposit of loan,
sand, etc, caused by the action of
water or glacial ice) of Europe, as
we'll as skulls found in caves, agree
with the homo sapiens (mam in size,
shape and capacity and are thorough
Iy well formed. They fill in no way
the gap existing between man and the
monkey" Thus writes the famous
paleontologist Zone yersed in the sci
Cnce of ancient life of the earth, or
of fossil remains of such life) Karl A.
Zittel. (Palaeozoologie, vol. 1, Verte-
brata, .. 717-71S. Munich and Leip-
zig, 1S91-1S93.
y Rudolph Tirchow%*) (f1902),
certainly witness above suspicion
and incontestable authority on such
questions, says: IF we study this
quaternary Ca geological age and
formation), fossil man, i'll the descend
ing or rather ascending series, who
would have to be nearer to our prime
val ancestors, we always find again
a man as we are. AS late as ten
years ago, if one found skull in peat
or in lake dwellings, or in old caves,
he thought to notice wonderful signs
of wild and undeveloped condition
OH it: he scented monkey air. But
gradually this has disappeared more
and more. The old troglodytes (cave
,dwellers), lake dwellers and peat
jewellers turn out to be quite respect
able company. They have heads of
such size that many a person now
living would feel happy if he had
such one. 1t is true, our French
neighbors have warned us not to con-
clude too much from these big heads;
it could be possible that they did not
only contain nerve substance, but
that these old brains had more con-
nective tissues as is usual at present,
and that their nervous substance, in
spite of the size of the brain, re-
manned on a low level of development
But this is only friendly converse
ton which has served to sustain weak
minds. Taken as a whole we must
acknowledge that there is wanting
every fossil type of low human de-
Velopment. Yes, if we take the sum
of all the fossil human beings thus
far discovered and put them side by
side Of what we have now, we can
maintain decidedly that among the
men living now there is a relative
larger number of lowly developed
individuals than among the fossils SO
lar known. That just the geniuses
of the quaternary period had the good
fortune to be preserved for us, 1 do
not dare to presume. Ordinarily we
judge from the condition of one fossil
object all the others which were not
found. | do not want to do that.
do not want to hold that the whole
race was as good as the few skulls
which have remained. But | must
say never has there been found "a
monkey skull or the skull of an ape
man that could have belonged to a
man. Every increase of the number
of the objects under discussion has
removed us further from the proposed
problem. :. We can not teach,
we can not maintain it as an achieve
ment of science that man descended
from the monkey or any other ami
NAL IVirchow, Die Freiheit der.
Wissenschaft (the Liberty of Sci
ence), p. 30-S1.l
P. S.-AI add again the third and
last article from Our Sunday Visitor,
relating to the questions under discus
. sion
Continued from last veek)
What pernicious tendency exists in
applying the following phase of eyo-
luton to social problems? Elwood
says: So long as it was possible to
look upon the human society as a dis
tinct creation it was possible
to hold to intellectualistiC views of
the origin of human institutions.
What evidence will support the ira
ditional theory that the human family
was begun as pure monogamy?
Elwood severely criticises the theory
that the family arose from promiscu-
ity or at least confused sex relations,
but says 1t has been created by the
very conditions of life. He says it is
not man-made, it is God-made?
suggest FIR. Cathrein:s Moral
Philosophie and other ethical works,