Darwinism stated by Darwin himself: Characteristic passages from the writings of Charles DarwinDarwin, Charles
Science
Darwinism stated by Darwin himself: Characteristic passages from the writings of Charles Darwin
Darwin, Charles
Evolution (Biology)
The inquirer would next come to the important point whether man
tends to increase at so rapid a rate as to lead to occasional severe
struggles for existence; and consequently to beneficial variations,
whether in body or mind, being preserved, and injurious ones
eliminated. Do the races or species of men, whichever term may be
applied, encroach on and replace one another, so that some finally
become extinct? We shall see that all these questions, as indeed
is obvious in respect to most of them, must be answered in the
affirmative, in the same manner as with the lower animals.
POINTS OF CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN MAN AND THE OTHER ANIMALS.
[The Descent
of Man,
page 6.]
It is notorious that man is constructed on the same general type or
model as other mammals. All the bones in his skeleton can be compared
with corresponding bones in a monkey, bat, or seal. So it is with his
muscles, nerves, blood-vessels, and internal viscera. The brain, the
most important of all the organs, follows the same law, as shown by
Huxley and other anatomists. Bischoff, who is a hostile witness, admits
that every chief fissure and fold in the brain of man has its analogy
in that of the orang; but he adds that at no period of development do
their brains perfectly agree; nor could perfect agreement be expected,
for otherwise their mental powers would have been the same.
* * * * *
Man is liable to receive from the lower animals, and to communicate
to them, certain diseases, as hydrophobia, variola, the glanders,
syphilis, cholera, herpes, etc.; and this fact proves the close
similarity of their tissues and blood, both in minute structure and
composition, far more plainly than does their comparison under the
best microscope, or by the aid of the best chemical analysis. Monkeys
are liable to many of the same non-contagious diseases as we are; thus
Rengger, who carefully observed for a long time the _Cebus Azaræ_ in
its native land, found it liable to catarrh, with the usual symptoms,
and which, when often recurrent, led to consumption. These monkeys
suffered also from apoplexy, inflammation of the bowels, and cataract
in the eye. The younger ones when shedding their milk-teeth often died
from fever. Medicines produced the same effect on them as on us. Many
kinds of monkeys have a strong taste for tea, coffee, and spirituous
liquors: they will also, as I have myself seen, smoke tobacco with
pleasure. Brehm asserts that the natives of Northeastern Africa catch
the wild baboons by exposing vessels with strong beer, by which they
are made drunk. He has seen some of these animals, which he kept in
confinement, in this state; and he gives a laughable account of their
behavior and strange grimaces. On the following morning they were very
cross and dismal; they held their aching heads with both hands, and
wore a most pitiable expression: when beer or wine was offered them,
they turned away with disgust, but relished the juice of lemons. An
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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