788 



EVOLUTION AND CONSERVATION 



Part VI 



Fig. 38.8. Cro-Magnon art. Upper, a partial restoration of what has been termed 

 "the earliest picture in the world because it is a composition" (After Lankester). 

 It is an engraving on the antler of a deer representing a group of deer advancing. 

 The largest stag looks backward, his mouth open and "blowing." Lower, figure of 

 a wild horse carved in ivory from Lourdes, France. The relatively abundant skele- 

 tal remains of the Cro-Magnons indicate that they may belong to our own species 

 Homo sapiens. They lived in Europe perhaps as early as 40,000 B.C. and their 

 culture seems to have persisted until about 13,000 B.C. The name Cro-Magnon 

 is that of a French rock shelter where several of their remains were found. (Cour- 

 tesy, Cleland: Our Prehistoric Ancestors. New York, Coward McCann, 1928.) 



philosophers described animals and set them in a progression from imperfect 

 to perfect — a procession with one behind the other and few questions asked. 

 There was little or no meddling into the relationships between them. 



Arrangements of animals according to perfection and separateness became 

 fixed in general thinking. For 15 centuries and more of the Christian era, 

 special creation, the separateness of difTerent kinds of animals, was held essen- 

 tial to Christian belief. It pleaded for unity on the one hand and supported 

 separateness on the other. Toward the end of this long era, there were now 

 and then signs of a change. 



From Separateness to Relationship 



The first general theory of evolution (1809) was that of Jean Lamarck 

 (1744-1829), a French zoologist. Its basic plan was the sequence of living 

 organisms from less to greater perfection. This had been held long before 



