Man in the Light of Evolution 



connections. As time goes on new centers are 

 continually arising in the brain. These are 

 more complex, finer, capable of higher action 

 and of nobler uses. Slowly and gradually in the 

 range of actions peculiar to man nervous energy 

 is playing a larger role, while muscular power, 

 though important or essential, becomes of sec- 

 ondary value. The athlete is a man of nerve. 

 Our weariness and lack of endurance is far more 

 of the nervous than of the muscular system. 



Late in tertiary times primitive man or his 

 anthropoid ancestor forsook the trees and lived 

 upon the ground. His legs lengthened to give 

 a longer stride. His trunk and arms became 

 relatively shorter. His whole body became 

 more finely molded and better fitted for higher 

 ends. The center and main scene of evolution 

 was shifted from the muscle to the brain, from 

 the body to the mind. It is hardly correct to 

 speak of any arrest of the body as far as evolu- 

 tion is concerned. Muscles may not be increas- 

 ing in bulk. But brain and mind are reacting 

 upon bone and muscle and subduing and mold- 

 ing them to their own mental ends. They are 

 making the body a fitter expression of the higher 

 mental life. The body is becoming an expres- 



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