July. 1928 



EVOLUTION 



Page Five 



Aiter a long preliminary development, the birds and 

 mammals (both warm-blooded and brainvl rose rapidly 

 to their present world mastery during the Cenozoic era. 

 Man is one of the mammals (hair-covered and milk- 

 nursed) and can trace his ancestry quite clearly over 

 the few hundred thousands of years of his evolution. 

 His span of existence on this earth has been most brief 

 as earth history goes, being represented by less than the 



thickness of the top line of the diagram. But in this 

 short time he has won rulership over the world and that 

 solely bv his wits. That is a record of which even a 

 fundamentalist should see fit to be proud. Whether we 

 are proud of it or not. that is the record, and it does 

 hold the promise that, as he has done great things in 

 the past, man shall do greater in the future. 



It Is Up To Man 



By George A. Dorsey 



1 



THE Smith-family-Robinson are ashore for a picnic 

 on an island never before trod bv Man. All go in 

 for a swim. A tidal wave picks them up and drops them 

 far inland, leaving no trace of boat, ship, or anything 

 but the scant whatever they had on. The shock robs 

 them of all memory of past life. They do not even re- 

 member their own names. 



Once Man was like that. Nature had made him, but 

 Man himself had not made anything. All that he has 

 made since is culture. 



Man made culture because culture seemed the easiest 

 way to satisfy a force within. This force was the joy 

 of life, the love to live. It drove him to get on, to try 

 to make life more secure, to rise above and become less 

 dependent upon physical surroundings: to postpone, to 

 cheat, death. 



He improved his lot. One thing led to another. 

 Meanwhile he talked the situation over with his mate, 

 parents, children, friends. One word led to another — a 

 new word for each new tool, for every new situation. 

 He invented a language — many languages. 



Customs became established into rules for living to- 

 gether, rules for family life, rules to govern the group. 

 He invented Heads of houses. Chiefs of tribes. Priests of 

 religion — for he early took to religion. 



He so loved life and had so little confidence in his 

 own power that he sought power everywhere — in stones, 

 in rivers, in trees, from the Serpent, from the Eagle, 

 from Sun, Moon, and Stars. He peopled his world with 

 ghosts — propitiated those he feared, cajoled those he 

 hated. Anything to get more power — power over foes, 

 over dangers, over forces, over life, over death. 



He would cheat death. He would make life more se- 

 cure, more stable. The quest for life led him a merry 

 chase. It leads us a merry chase. It might be so much 

 merrier. 



Man must eat, drink, and be married — or he dies and 

 leaves no mourners. It almost looks like a vicious circle. 

 In a wav it is — in this way: we alwavs get back to the 



nature of the beast, to human nature, to the nature of 

 life. Nature does not "believe"' in civilization, vote the 

 Republican ticket, or set kings on or off thrones. Na- 

 ture is interested in food and sleep, legs and livers, and 

 babies. Nor does she care what or when we eat — only 

 that we get enough of certain foods; nor with whom we 

 mate — only that we propagate our kind. 



Life is simple. It is Man that is complex — complex 

 in the vast and intricate machinery he has devised to 

 satisfy Life's simple demands. Wonderful machinery — 

 but are we alwavs certain we know what it is all about, 

 what it does to us, whether we fit into it, whether it 

 fits us? 



This machinery is Man-made, "artificial"- — it has a 

 history. Man is a product of Nature, "natural"- — Man 

 has a history. The two histories are not the same. One 

 is millions of years long, the other but a few weeks as 

 time flies. One begins where the other leaves off. One 

 is Nature, the other is culture. Culture takes a thou- 

 sand forms and goes by many names. Its forms change 

 and often have but little relation to the work they were 

 asked to do. The work to be done is always the same: 

 satisfy Man's love of life and need for love. Culture 

 is handed down to us from loving hands — it is our patri- 

 mony. Often we do not see it, we just accept it with 

 child-like faith, assuming that it is what we want, what 

 we need, all that we can get. We lean on it to get us 

 food and sleep and rest and immortality. We count on 

 it for support, as our ancestors counted on the spirits 

 they propitiated with food and wine. We even throw a 

 halo over it, venerate it, sanctify it. Or, we try to im- 

 prove it, not knowing what we try to improve, not real- 

 izing that Man is of more value than custom or law. 



Culture is the means to the ends of life. The ends are 

 rooted in our natural inheritance. The understanding 

 of that inheritance is the key to human culture; without 

 that key we cannot unlock the chests of our social patri- 

 m.ony, nor separate the gold from the base metal of our 

 lives. 



ATOM.S IN EVOLUTION 

 At the April nieetini; of the Ainerioar 

 Clieinical Society in Washington, the as 

 sembled scientists -saw plmtograplis of 

 atoms in process of reconstruction taken 

 by Professor William D. Harkins of the 

 Ilniversity of (Chicago and heard Dr. H. A. 



Millikan describe the creation of common 

 ilcmciits through thi- action of his newly 

 discovered "cosmic rays". The pictures 

 showed "the synthesis of an atom, since 

 a helium atom is striking a nitrogen atom 

 and forms a heavier oxygen atom and a 

 higher hydrogen atom." "Whether all thi; 



atom building and changing indicates a 

 universe that is building all the time oi 

 is being steadily destroyed, as the oldci 

 school of philosophy had it, is still in 

 doubt. It builds in some places and tears 

 down in others; it may remain in statu.' 

 quo.' 



