Year: 1874

PhiIosophic Monkies.


Editors Of the Register.


"There is a knowing ram near Paris,
Tenn. The local paper OF that place
says: A. G. Mccall, Esq., of this coun-
ty, has a very fine ram Of the Cots
wold and Southdown breed. The re.
markable feature of this buck is bis
manner OF getting persimmons. When
enough fruit has not fallen off the tree
during the night to satisfy his ramsh'p's
appetite he proceeds to shake the tree,
which be does in the following manner:
He will walk out from the tree some
fifteen or twenty PAGES, and alter look
ing st it two or three times, will come
full tilt and strike the body of the tree
with all the force he is capable of ex-
erting. Down rattle the persimmons
and he proceeds to regale himself with
an air that seems to say, IL know a
thing or two" One thing troubles this
knowing ram, and that is. he cannot
distinguish persimmon tree from q
post.oak, aud he butts them all.


This IS a ram. certainly, of no ordi-
nary character. He is the finest speci-
men OF ovine evolution in the State OF
Tennessee. The facts show that there
is an evolution for sh eep ss well as
monkies. 1t is impossible fox people Of
the common sort to 60 away out on the
"headlands of eternity" and take into
their narrow minds the long stretches
of evolution which out of the Mollusk
evolved the radiate, out Of the radiate
evolved the articulate, and out of this
the vertebrate, before nature could get
the backbone of the monkey. For my
own part l never could get out onto
those headlanjs to see how the man
could evolve out OF the monkey until ]
realized the profound sympathy between
monkies by reading the learned articles
by which certain writers in the REGIS
TER and IntelEgencsr, with some vanity
OF their ancestral descent deduced
their true genealogical tree. De gustibus
non eat desputandum, there is no account
ing for tastes, and family pride is some
times very foolish, and boasts OF the
tricks OF their ancestors, and rather
than quarrel with these gentlemen
about the claim they set up for their pa
ternity am disposed to admit the fam
lily likeness, especially as they can
neither see nor feel any distinction be-
tween moral powers and physical
forces no more than the Tennessee ram
could tell the difference between a per-
simmon tree that gave him the fruit on
which he lived and the gate
post which confined him to his ovine
pasture: But as these gentlemen,
somewhat redeemed from their monkey
tricks, differ 80 widely in their views,
though their characters are much the
same, think | see one OF them,


"a misanthroplc monkey. gray and grim,
Bearing lot that has no remedy


For want OF concert in the monkey tribe,
While another sits perched with broWs
A serious ape whom none takes seriously,
obliged In this FOOLS world to earn his


nuts


By hard bufoonery."


The monkey is certainly initiative
and chatters monstrously, and is full Of
fantastic tricks, though no painter can
very promiscuously dab on the black
and white without any reason at all
1t is the claim OF the lineal descendants
o: the monkey, that so far as they can
frame, not the descendants but the
monkeys, that go far as they can frame
any idea OF God it is monkey God
now il the man can frame more exalt-
ed idea and OF fuller, broader, nobler,
Intellectual and moral proportions OF
that idea of God, and simply because
the basis Of these qualities are in the
constitution OF his nature, what 10 the
character OF that mind that can form
no idea OF God at all? Through what
obliteration of evolutionary processes
has he passed so as to lose that which
is distinctive of man. and that he
should, mentally, fall back to the con-
dition oil the monkey


HoMo NAfUs.