South Bend news-times. (South Bend, Ind.) 1913-1938, 1918-12-23
BY GARRETT. p. sERVIss.

am inclined TO believe that the
monkey is degenerate branch of
the human family rather than that
man is an intellectual branch or the
monkey family My reasons are:
% That there are periods in his
tory which are obscure and shaded
over by a mist which forbids rigid
examination. and that there We're
times when whole communities used
10 be outlawed to the life of the wild
in the woods and forests
CD That God destroyed two great
cities for the sin of Sodom.
(5) There are delinquents who DO
not possess the craft or cleverness
of monkeys. and if such children
were born into "a life of the jungle
and produced children still more de-
linquent-What then?
ca Are not the sins of the par
ents visited on the children?
60 Could man. beginning as a
monkey, attain such a state of in
itelligence?
CO DO not the wicked and de-
~ oNtu dl"oS = NtDlllit ldIiei eA"ii
ascend
trust you will deal with this mat
tier and so help light the way for
several who are as interested as
THE WRITER.
Bronx. New York City. y. Y
There was a time when the view
YOU entertain was widely dissent
mated. principally TO reconcile scien-
Itifc discoveries with the tenets OF
dogmatic theologv. Many persons
who shrank with horror from the
suggestion that man had arisen
from the condition OF an animal re-
lsembling the ape exhibited no re-
lpugnance 10 the COunter-propositiOn
that apes were the degenerate de-
iscendants of men.
They found it easier. more agree
able and less sinful to believe that
mans natural tendency was down
rather than up. They were aristo-
cratic enough Indignantly to deny =
lowly origin for themselves. while
not feeling worried over the vita
ton Of their progeny. It was less
disgraceful 70 turn from a man into
chattering, tree-climbins animal
with a handy tail than to go in the
opposite direction. and in descend
ing from the trees and getting rio
of the chatter 10 evolve Shake
Ispeares. NewtOns. Washingtons and
Edisons,
There never vas any sound rea-
son for thinking that apes or mon
KEYS are the products OF progress
sive degeneration from more man
like creatures. In the first place,
they do not lie i'm the line Of direct
ancestry. Science has never claimed
any such place for them. All the
evidence shows that they have been
evolved on collateral lines descend
Ing from some now unknown and
lunexisting ancestral form.
II it we're possible for man 20 20
backward along the course Of his
evolution he could not possibly be-
come either ar ape or monkey
because the road by which ne has
come up is not branch from any
/ of their roads They started from
la common point and followed in
some respects parallel but not at all
Identical ways.
/ Paleontology and biology show
THAT upon the whole. the evolution
Iof living beings has always been to-
ward higher planes IL is true tina;
degeneration has played a certain
part. as shown 10y DOhrn's theory. il
the changes undergone by organism
hut the effects Of desenerative
changes are fundamentally differ
lent from those produced by prosres-
sive upward evolution. and degener-
alton is not TO be regarded as re-
IXerse process Of evolution.
Only parts OF the structure OF an
animal and not its entire organism
lare effected by cegeneration. For
Example, moles are degenerate. in
THAT they have lost the use OF their
lorgans OF vision. and SO with the
Ibhnd animals dwelling in vast dark
lcaverns like the Mammoth Cave. but
lthese creatures have undergone no
lsuch revolution and reconstruction
as would be necessary 10 turn hu-
Imam bcing into a monkey.
As the leaves OF the past history
lof the earth are turned the nvesti'
gator reads there a consistent story
tor evolutionary advance The re-