Evening star., 1925-08-07

small species, like the chimpanzee, or
from one as powerful as the gorilla;
and, therefore, we cannot say whether
| man has become larger and stronger,
or smaller and weaker than his an
cestors.
I'VE should, however bear in mind
! that an animal possessing great size,
strength and ferocity, and which, like
the gorilla, could defend itself from
all enemies. would not perhaps have
become social; and this would most
effectually have checked the acquire.
ment of the higher mental qualities.
such as sympathy and the love Of his
| fellows. Hence IL might have been an
immense advantage to man to have
sprung from some comparatively weak
creature"
In the next chapter he says: "Judg.
| ing from the analogy of the majority
| OF the Quadrumana, 1t is probable that
! the early ape-like progenitors of man
were likewise social" Later he de-
clares: I'm order that primeval men,
or the ape-like progenitors of man,
should become social, they must have
| acquired the same instructive feel.
ings which impel other animals to live
In body"
Concluding the fifth chapter, Oar.
win says: ITO believe that man was
dDOTiSlIldly CINiilLeu anu tH6Il SuIcT6O
utter degradation Is to take
pitiably low view of human nature
| 1t Is apparently a truer and more
cheerful view that progress has been
much more general than retrogres-
sion; that man has risen, though by
| slow and interrupted steps, from a
lowly condition to the highest stand.
ard yet attained by him in knowledge,
| morals and religion"
In Chapter VI Darwin warns the
reader: I'VE must not fall into the
error Of supposing that the early pro.
genitor of the whole Simian stock, In.
Guiding man, was Identical with. or
| even closely resembling, any existing
ape or monkey"
Now hear the conclusion of the
| whole matter. given in the final
chapter:
THE main conclusion here arrived
| at, and now held by many naturalists
who are we'll competent to form a
sound judgment, is that man is de-
scended from some less highly organ
lied form"
Facts, says Darwin, ''all point in
the plainest manner to the conclusion
| that man is the co-descendant with
other mammals of a common progeni-
tor" He continues:
I'VE thus learn that man is descend
ed from a hairy, tailed quadruped,
probably arboreal in it's habits and an
inhabitant of the Old World.
This creature, If it's whole struc-
ture had been examined by natural
list, would have been classed among
the Quadrumana. as surely a g the still
more ancient progenitor of the Old
and New World monkeys.
The Quadrumana and all the high.
er mammals are proba bly derived from
an ancient marsupial animal and this
through a long line of diversified
forms, from some amphibian-like crea-
ture, and this again from some fish,
like animal In the dim obscurity of
the past we can see that the early
progenitor of all the Vertebrate must
| have been an aquatic animal. This
animal seems to have been more like
the larvae of the existing marine AS
cidians than any other known form
Darwin, having written one book al
ready along this line, knew well that
thousands refused to agree with him.
He says:
Il am aware that the conclusions
arrived at in this work will be de-
nounced by some as highly irreligious,
| but he who denounces them is bound
to show why IL is more irreligious to
| explain the origin of man as a dis
tinct species from some lower form,
| through the laws of variation and nat
ural selection, than to explain the
| birth of the individual through the
laws of ordinary reproduction. The
birth both of the species and of the in
dividual are equally parts Of that
grand sequence of events which our
minds refuse TO accept as the result of
| blind chance"