April, 1928 



EVOLUTION 



Page Three 



the negative factor — cenogenesis — disturbs or alters this 

 picture in consequence of subsequent modification of the 

 original course of development. 



The ontogenetic law, in this amplified version, has 

 become a common-place of evolutionary thought. When 

 in the latter nineteenth century the social sciences fell 

 under the spell of evolutionary ideas, much obfuscation 

 and error resulted from an uncritical application of the 

 law in the social field. It was argued, for example, that 

 the psychic development of a modern individual recapitu- 



lates the psychic history of man from savagery upward 

 and that savages thus become comparable to our children. 

 A very silly notion this, for what is left out of account 

 here is the nature of the historic process which is one 

 of cumulation and accretion. Savage cultures are as 

 historic and as old as our own and savages have children 

 who — rather than their fathers — are quite like our chil- 

 dren. An organic law of growth cannot be expected to 

 apply to historic series which are based on the transfer 

 and cumulation of tradition. 



Let Man Do It! 



By Georce Dorsey 



TODAY no sea or land is safe from Man. Even at 

 the dawn of history there were cities and civiliza- 

 tion. Beyond that dawn — what of sea or land? Or of Man? 



Sweep the ships from the sea. Clear the earth of 

 human homes and cultivated fields, and restore the 

 trackless forests. Turn the horses, cows, sheep, 

 chickens, cats and dogs back to nature. Strip man of 

 the last shred of his handiwork. Leave him nothing — • 

 no bow and arrow or spear, nor stone knife to cut a 

 stick with or open a mussel shell; no light nor hearth, 

 nor knowledge of making fire; no basket, pot, bucket 

 or cup to carry water in; no mat to lie on, nor skin of 

 beast to cover his body; no man-made thing at all, 

 nor anything ready-made to do anything with; nor a 

 friend in the world outside his own kin. Such was the 

 untamed, unnamed world our ancestors faced with only 

 their naked bodies. 



Take a look at that body. It is ours — we need not 

 be ashamed of it; if it grins we can smile back — and 

 marvel that it did its work so well. It is work that 

 counts — the work that man has done is the marvel; 

 man's body is nothing much to look at. 



Man could run, swim, jump, climb, dig — but not 

 so well as deer, fish, flea, squirrel, mole; he could not 

 fly at all. What could he oppose to wings of eagles, 

 strength of elephants, teeili of tigers, fleetness of deer, 

 venom of vipers, agility of monkeys? Mind? Mind 

 alone is nothing. Intelligence? Intelligence alone feeds 

 nobody, subdues nothing. There must be structure back 

 of mind, mechanism for intelligence to work with; that 

 was his physical body. 



When man shot an arrow from a bow, he showed 

 '"human" intelligence. But he could not make arrow 

 without that man-body; arms free to use the finest tools 

 ever conceived, human hands; a brain full of cells to 

 store up experience; a larynx fit to relate experiences, 

 and ears attuned to hear the experiences of others. 



TO FIND MAN IN THE PICTURE 



Have yoii decUled which one of the little figures on the front 

 cover resembles you the most? They are tlie embryos of nine 

 mammals at the stage when tliey have flsh like talis and gill slits. 

 Wliich one is the human eml)ryoV 



I>i> not be surprised that the question pnzzles you. They are 

 iiluiost lilie peas in a pod. The embryonic (leveioi>ment of man 

 and other mammals goes through sufh closely similar aniestral 

 stages that even S',-ieutilic exjHrts can hardly tell tliem apart. 



These figures were taljen from a brochure by Krnst Haeckel. 

 "Unsere Ahnenrcihe" (Our Anieslry), published in 1908. Haeckei 

 e.\plaius that some of them were taken from iiis own collection. 



With spear and arrow, Man suddenly had arms 

 longer than the tentacles of a devil-fish. He need not 

 run like a deer or dive like a whale — spear and ar- 

 row ran and dived for him! By a mere puff through 

 a hollow tube, he sent a poisoned dart over the tallest 

 tree. It made less noise than the wing of bee but 

 could overtake and kill the swiftest bird; it was a 

 fang as deadly as the viper's, a dagger longer than the 

 sabre-toothed tiger's. 



It had taken nature millions of years to invent 

 poison fang, dagger tooth, elephant strength, and 

 eagle wing. Having made man, nature said: Let man 

 do it — let him run the world a while and worry and 

 invent things! 



Man accepted the challenge, and turned the job over 

 to his wife; leaving her to care for the babies and 

 the fire. He went a-fishing. There he met some cronies 

 and organized the explorers club. 



The world's work was begun. 



Let man do it! Man was not new: he was different, 

 he was superior, he had the equipment to do human 

 things. He could hoe his own row, and row his own 

 boat. And he had to. He was no little Tommy 

 Tucker- — to sing for his supper. He was still animal, 

 and, like the animals, he had to root, hog, or die. 

 Having no snout, he made a digging stick. But we, 

 brave little Jackie Horners that we are, cry: What a 

 great boy am I! We did not make the Christmas pie, 

 we found the banquet set. 



To set that banquet, every sea was sailed and every 

 land explored — even before the dawn of recorded his- 

 tory. Beyond that dawn was man — insignificant in our 

 eyes, and unsung; crude, rude. But he was man — he 

 could ponder, he could worry. Without worry there 

 would have been no progress; worry means a prob- 

 lem unsolved. He solved problems by inventing 

 things. And nature let him. 



and some from various other scientific sources and that such soft 

 and delicate objects suffer changes through tile various methods 

 of preservation and therefore do not correspond exactly. If all 

 nine had been obtained at exactly tlic same stage of emryonic de- 

 velopment and kept under exactly the same conditions, the outer 

 similarity would be still more striking. The inner structures 

 of ail these embryonic bodies arc almost exaitly alike. .-Vccording 

 to the Biogenetic law, they bear indisputable witness to the 

 "Monophyletic Origin of all Mammals" from a common root, a 

 Pro-mammal of the Triassic Period. 



So, after all, we will have to tell you which is which. 

 The nine embryos are: — 1. Spiny ant-eater; '2. Opossum; 3. Hog; 

 4. Cat; ."). liat:"i"'. Lemur; 7. Monkey; S. Gibbon (Ape); and !». Man. 



