Evening star., 1925-08-07
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES E. TRACEWELL.

When i got Charles Darwin's THE
Descent of Man" home. l discovered
that the salesgirl had put on it the
wrapper intended for Jerome's idle
Thoughts Of an Idle Fellow" whether
Intentionally or not I leave the reader
TO puzzle out.
During the recent miscalled "evolu-
ton trial." hundreds of thousands Of
persons talked glibly of Darwin and
his idea who had never read a word
in either of his two most famous
books.
How do | know that? Because l
was one of them After the trial,
however. ! resolved to do tardy JUS
tice to Darwin land to myself, so pur-
chased copies of THE Origin Of Spe-
cies" and Descent of Man"
If you will stick along with me for a
couple of articles / can save you the
work of plowing through some 1900
pages of small type; for Darwin gave
the gist of his contentious very plain
ly, as scientist should; but one has
TO do lot of digging to get them out.
Today our old book for review, then.
readable of the two. Published first in
1871, this work has been more talked
about than read by the general public
ever since.
In college classes, it is prescribed
reading, but few students ever read
1t, and the professors do not expect
them to. Some browse through the
second part, Sexual Selection" but
most never even take the trouble to
do that.
In other words, THE Descent of
Man" is not easy reading. 1t is diff
cult reading for the person who has
not been trained in just the subjects
treated. Personally, l doubt very
much II it is worth while for the aver
age man or women to read II. .(Espe.
cially when there is some one else
ready TO drag out the meat" for them
and serve ii up in few minutes,
y
Just what did Darwin say about
man being descended from a monkey?
or, rather, the greatgranddaddy Of all
the monkeys?
In the Origin of Species" publish
ed 10 years previously, Darwin had
said that he would throw some light
ION the origin of man and his his
tory, implying that man must be
included with other organic beings in
any general conclusion respecting his
manner OF appearance on this earth"
In the volume under review here,
this work is to consider, firstly,
whether man, like every other species.
is descended from some pre-existing
form; secondly, the manner of his de-
velopment: and thirdly, the value of
the differences between the so-called
races of man" Were he writing to.
day he would leave off that "ly" after
first, second, third)
1t is notorious, the author says, that
man is constructed on the same gen.
cral type of model as other mammals.
He has diseases in common with them.
is under the same laws, such as those
of birth. The similarity of pattern, he
says, between the hand of man or
monkey, the foot of horse. the fiipper
of seal, the wing of a bat, is utterly
inexplicable under any other view than
that there was a common progenitor
Darwin says that certain muscles
are abnormally found In man which
are normally found in certain apes.
and declares: 1t is quite incredible
that a man should, through mere ac-
cident, abnormally resemble certain
apes in no less than seven of his
muscles, if there had been no genetic
connection between them.
''On the other hand, If man is de-
scended from some apelike creature
no valid reason can be assigned why
certain muscles should not suddenly
reappear after an interval of many
thousand generations" This is the
first use of the word APE" in this
connection.
At the conclusion of the third chap.
ter Darwin says: In regard to bod
ily size or strength we do no know
whether man is descended from some