THE CURTAIN 



ON one side of the heights above the River of Life stand 

 the men of this little world, — the fully developed, the un- 

 derdone, and the unbaked, in one struggling, seething 

 mass. On the other side, and on a level but one step lower 

 down, stands the vanguard of the long procession of "Lower" 

 Animals, led by the chimpanzee, the orang and the gorilla. 

 The natural bridge that almost spans the chasm lacks only the 

 keystone of the arch. 



Give the apes just one thing, — speech, — and the bridge is 

 closed! 



Take away from a child its sight, speech and hearing, and 

 the whole world is a mystery, which only the hardest toil of 

 science and education ever can reveal. Give back hearing and 

 sight, without speech, and even then the world is only half 

 available. Give a chimpanzee articulate expression and 

 language, and no one could fix a limit to his progress. 



Take away from a man the use of one lobe of his brain, and 

 he is rendered speechless. 



The great Apes have travelled up the River of Life on the 

 opposite side from Man, but they are only one lap behind him. 

 Let us not deceive ourselves about that. Remember that 

 truth is inexorable in its demands to be heard. 



We need not rack our poor, finite minds over the final 

 problem of evolution, or the final destiny of Man and Ape. 

 We cannot prove anything beyond what we see. We do not 

 know, and we never can know, whether the chimpanzee has a 

 "soul" or not; and we cannot prove that the soul of man is 

 immortal. If man possesses a soul of lofty stature, why not a 

 soul of lowly stature for the chimpanzee? 



We do not know just where "heaven" is; and we cannot 



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