The Origin of Man and of His SuperstitionsRead, Carveth
Philosophy
The Origin of Man and of His Superstitions
Read, Carveth
Animism; Human beings -- Origin; Magic; Superstition; Totemism
[22] M. A. Czaplicka, _My Siberian Year_, p. 230.
[23] Ripley, _The Races of Europe_, pp. 76-7.
[24] Darwin, _Animals and Plants under Domestication_, Pop. ed., II. p.
308.
[25] The contents of this section lie outside my own studies, and have
been taken from various books of Geology and Palæontology: I must
especially mention Prof. Osborne’s _Age of Mammals_ (1910) and Prof.
Scott’s _Land Mammals in the Western Hemisphere_ (1913). I have also
profited by inspecting the Palæontological Gallery at South Kensington
with the help of its excellent Guide-Book.
[26] A. Keith, _The Human Body_, p. 58.
[27] _Travels and Researches in Western Africa_, ch. vii.
CHAPTER II
ON THE DIFFERENTIATION OF THE HUMAN FROM THE ANTHROPOID MIND
§ 1. HEREDITY, ADAPTATION, ACCOMMODATION
Following the general belief that Man is descended from a stock nearly
allied to the greater anthropoids—Orang, Chimpanzee, Gorilla—we may
assume that his mental endowments were once much the same as theirs;
and that, so far as they are still the same, _heredity_ sufficiently
explains his having them. Thus the senses, perception, the simpler
forms of comparison and inference, the appetites and many of the
instincts and emotions are common to us with the apes, are seen in
our children under three years old, and (in short) constitute that
generic consciousness (as I have called it) from which the human
mind in general and the peculiar traits of races and individuals are
differentiated.
So much for heredity; but the differences of the human from the
anthropoid mind, alike in intelligence and in character, are enormous,
and must be accounted for in some other way. Allowing for some original
specific difference which we can hardly hope to discover, the changes
that have taken place may be considered as the result of _adaptation_
to those habits of life under which our species (now ranking
zoologically as a Family) has been developed. And this adaptation I
shall assume to have been brought about under conditions of natural
selection: human races, as we now see them, being the survivors of
many variations, more or less successful, and the others having been
destroyed. For good judges are of opinion that, amongst the discovered
remains of ancient specimens of the human family, some that exhibit
marked deviations from the modern type—Neanderthalensis, Eoanthropus,
Pithecanthropus—should be regarded not as belonging to our ancestral
line, but rather as representing distinct species that have failed in
the struggle for existence.[28]
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