172 . The Descent of Man. 



Pkokessok IIexry S. Di:avtox: — 



It is not well to assume too mmli for the theory of evolution as 

 applied to man. Let us (hvell upon some doubtful points. It is 

 easy to overstate theories. Let us first be sure of our facts. 

 Haeckel, and those of his school, present a very beautiful theory 

 of the descent of man, tracing resemblances to man in the lemur, 

 the orang and the chimpanzee. They compare the gorilla to the 

 degraded Australian; the Tapuan and Negro to the chimpanzee. 

 But it cannot be truly said that those animals possess the attributes 

 of these races in any striking degree. The cranium of the dog is 

 more delicately organized than that of the highly favored ape from 

 which man is supposed to be descended. The embryonic argu- 

 ment, too, is apt to be exaggerated. The embryos resemble each 

 other for a time — but the significant fact is that they begin to 

 change. Why? Professor Von Hartmann of Berlin says that 

 there is a wide difference in intelligence between the lowest man 

 and the anthropoids. Man is capable of indefinite education, 

 while animals are not. Again, man's immediate progenitor has 

 not been discovered. Why not ? The division of the hyoid bone 

 to which Professor Cope has alluded has been found to be a char- 

 acteristic of the ancestors of the Zuni Indians, and still infiuences 

 the peculiar voice and cry of the natives. In civilized man this 

 bone has become solidified. Man is less perfect than many of the 

 animals in many of his organs and functions. Why is this so if 

 man is the highest product of evolution ? Sir John Lubbock says 

 the anthropoid ape must yield the second place to the ant in the 

 order of intelligence. The monkey must give way to the ant — he 

 cannot toe the line. 



Dr. Lew^is G. Janes: — 



Professor Cope has spoken of man's ability, through his own 

 volition, to protect himself from the harsher features of the opera- 

 tion of the law of natural selection, which appears fraught with 

 so much pain, evil and loss along the lines of vegetable and animal 

 evolution. I believe no one has called attention to the fact that 

 Mr. Spencer, in his " Essay on the Law of Population" and else- 

 where, brings out the idea that the law is self-correcting, so to 

 speak; that there exists in the nature of life a tendency which in 

 human society will ultimately relieve man from the severest stress 

 of the struggle for existence. As intelligence becomes more 

 active in man and all along the line of animal evolution, we find 

 that the tendency to increase of population diminishes ; so that, 

 according to Spencer, there will come a time when the evil will 



