A first book in organic evolutionShute, D. Kerfoot (Daniel Kerfoot)
Science
A first book in organic evolution
Shute, D. Kerfoot (Daniel Kerfoot)
Evolution
Here we meet with the common, generalized ancestors of man and the
monkeys. These creatures contained, potentially at least, _anthropoid_
as well as _pithecoid_ characters. From them were derived the primitive
New World monkeys (primitive Platyrrhines) and the primitive Old
World monkeys (primitive Catarrhines). Some of the descendants of the
primitive Old World monkeys, migrating into an environment which favored
particularly the pithecoid characters, eventually developed into the
tailed monkeys of the Old World (Cercopithecidæ). Others of their
descendants, migrating into a different environment, found conditions
that favored the anthropoid characters especially, and by greater
and greater use of these, with the diminished use of the pithecoid
ones, the characters of the anthropoid apes (primitive Simiidæ and
primitive Simiinæ) became clearer and clearer until, in time, primitive
anthropopithecus appeared,—a tailless anthropoid ape of the Old World.
More than likely this anthropoid ape bore a close resemblance, as Dr.
Theodore Gill long since taught, to the modern chimpanzee. If there were
any differences they could scarcely have been of even a generic value.
This primitive chimpanzee was undoubtedly a quadrupedal, quadrumanous
creature leading an arboreal life. His descendants specialized along
two distinct but closely related lines. Those that continued to live in
trees specialized along the oblique path that led finally to the gorilla
on the one hand and the chimpanzee on the other. Those descendants that
abandoned the trees and lived on the ground used the feet more and more
for purposes of locomotion and less for grasping; while they employed
with increasing frequency the hands for grasping exclusively. Associated
with these adaptations were many other correlated adaptations, such as
the upright posture, an enlarging brain, a change in the character of the
face and of the dentition, etc. As man evolved further and further along
the central trunk of the tree of life, he discarded, through disuse, many
of the characters that are peculiar to the anthropoid apes; and assumed
with increasing emphasis, through use, many of the characters that are
distinctive of man. He passed through the phases of pithecoid man and
pre-palæolithic (primitive) man, until eventually, in palæolithic man,
the visage of humanity is clear and unmistakable.
It is extremely interesting to attempt to form some rough picture of
primitive man. It may help us to do so if we recall what Darwin has said
about the Fuegians, who are among the lowest of savages. He has written
that they are men whose very signs and expressions are less intelligible
to us than those of the domesticated animals—men who do not possess the
instinct of those animals, nor yet appear to boast of human reason, or at
least of arts consequent on that reason.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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