THE EVOLUTION OF MAN 



1 section lay eggs, the Australian duckbills. The 



! mammals of the other section have done away 

 with that; the child when born is far more ma- 

 ture. Every human mother testifies to the fact 



! < that human beings are not duckbills, but belong 

 to a higher class. And now we come to a final 

 choice. We look at the hands and teeth of 

 man. Man is not a whale, the hands of which 

 have turned into fins. He is not a carnivorous 

 animal which has one-sidedly developed its eye- 

 teeth and incisors. He is not an animal with 

 hoofs which has laid special stress upon its molar 



I teeth. He is not a rodent, the best trumps of 

 which are the incisors ; he is not a sloth, the teeth 



j of which have entirely degenerated, nor is he a 

 bat, the hands of which are made into wings. 

 There is only one single group of mammals, the 

 teeth and hands of which resemble those of man, 



Kand that group is composed of monkeys. X 



Mark well: when Linnaeus placed man side 

 by side with the monkeys in his system, he was 

 not thinking of anything else but just an orderly 

 arrangement, a systematic grouping of animals 

 at a greater or smaller distance, just as a boy 

 will stick his beetles into his collection, some 

 closer, others farther apart. But since the days 

 of Linnaeus a good many deep thinkers and clear 



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