413 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Mammalia 



Mail 



2O19. MAN AND APE No Trace of 

 the Missing Link. In vain have we sought 

 for the connecting links between man and 

 the apes; the ancestor of man, the real 

 Proanthropos, has not been found. Twenty 

 years ago it seemed as if the process of 

 descent from the ape to man could be con- 

 structed by storm. Now, however, we can- 

 not even trace the descent of the. different 

 races from one another. At this moment 

 we can say that among people of ancient 

 times none have been found who were nearer 

 the apes than we are. I can affirm at pres- 

 ent that there is no absolutely unknown 

 race of men on earth. Every living race is 

 human; none has been found which we 

 could either call simian or between the ape 

 and man. So far as the pile structures are 

 concerned, I have been able to examine 

 nearly all the skulls found, and the result is 

 that we find differences between the various 

 tribes, but that not one of these tribes lies 

 outside of the range of still existing people. 

 It can be definitely proved that in the course 

 of five thousand years no change of types 

 worthy of mention has occurred. VIBCHOW 

 Address before the Anthropological Congress 

 in Vienna, 1889. (Translated for Scientific 

 Side-Lights.) 



2020. 



with Mental Remoteness. One of the chief 

 factors in the production of man was the 

 change that occurred in the direction of the 

 working of natural selection, whereby in 

 the line of man's direct ancestry the vari- 

 ations in intelligence came to be seized 

 upon, cherished, and enhanced, to the com- 

 parative neglect of variations in bodily 

 structure. The physical differences between 

 man and ape are less important than the 

 physical differences between African and 

 South - American apes. The latter belong 

 to different zoological families, but the for- 

 mer do not. Zoologically, man is simply 

 one genus in the Old- World family of apes. 

 Psychologically, he has traveled so far from 

 apes that the distance is scarcely meas- 

 urable. FISKE Through Nature to God, pt. 

 i, ch. 9, p. 49. (H. M. & Co., 1900.) 



2O21. 



Unfilled Gap be- 



tween. Even Haeckel admits that there is 

 a wide gap, unfilled by any recent or any fos- 

 sil creature, between man and the highest 

 apes. DAWSON Facts and Fancies in Modern 

 Science, lect. 4, p. 142. (A. B. P. S.) 



2O22. MAN AND MIMOSA .ftfem Has 



What Is in Mimosa Mimosa Has Not What 

 Is in Man. To say that self-consciousness 

 has arisen from sensation, and sensation 

 from the function of nutrition, let us say, 

 in the Mimosa pudica, or sensitive plant, 

 may be right or wrong; but the error can 

 only be serious when it is held that that 

 accounts either for self-consciousness or for 

 the transition. Mimosa can be defined in 

 terms of man; but man cannot be defined 

 in terms of Mimosa. The first is possible 



because there is the least fraction in that 

 which is least in man of that which is great- 

 est in Mimosa; the last is impossible be- 

 cause there is nothing in Mimosa of that 

 which is greatest in man. . . . Man, in 

 the last resort, has self-consciousness, Mi- 

 mosa sensation, and the difference is. quali- 

 tative as well as quantitative. DRUMMOND 

 Ascent of Man, ch. 4, p. 126. (J. P., 1900.) 



2023. MAN AND WOMAN TAUGHT 

 BY DIFFERENT ANIMAL TEACHERS 



In contact with the animal world, and ever 

 taking lessons from them, men watched the 

 tiger, the bear, the fox, the falcon, learned 

 their language and imitated them in cere- 

 monial dances. But women were instructed 

 by the spiders, the nest-builders, the storers 

 of food, and the workers in clay, like the 

 mud-wasp and the termites. It is not meant 

 that these creatures set up schools to teach 

 dull women how to work, but that their 

 quick minds were on the alert for hints 

 coming from these sources. Even tho we 

 disarm our soldiery, we do not seem to be 

 able to dissociate men from the works that 

 bring violent death. It is in the apotheosis 

 of industrialism that woman has borne her 

 part so persistently and well. At the very 

 beginning of human time she laid down the 

 lines of her duties, and she has kept to them 

 unremittingly. MASON Woman's Share in 

 Primitive Culture, ch. 1, p. 2. (A., 1894.) 



2024. MAN, ANTIQUITY OF Lan- 

 guages Developed in Prehistoric Time. The 

 main work of language-making was done in 

 the ages before history. Going back as far 

 as philology can take us, we find already 

 existing a number of language-groups, dif- 

 fering in words and structure, and, if they 

 ever had any relationship with one another, 

 no longer showing it by signs clear enough 

 for our skill to make out. Of an original 

 primitive language of mankind, the most 

 patient research has found no traces. The 

 oldest types of language we can reach by 

 working back from known languages show 

 no signs of being primitive tongues of man- 

 kind. Indeed, it may be positively asserted 

 that they are not such, but that ages of 

 growth and decay have mostly obliterated 

 the traces how each particular sound came 

 to express its particular sense. Man, since 

 the historical period, has done little in the 

 way of absolute new creation of language, 

 for the good reason that his wants were al- 

 ready supplied by the words he learnt from 

 his fathers, and all he had to do when a 

 new idea came to him was to work up old 

 words into some new shape. Thus the study 

 of languages gives much the same view of 

 man's antiquity as has been already gained 

 from the study of races. The philologist, 

 asked how long he thinks mankind to have 

 existed, answers that it must have been long 

 enough for human speech to have grown 

 from its earliest beginnings into elaborate 

 languages, and for these in their turn to 

 have developed into families spread far and 



