The Universal KinshipMoore, J. Howard (John Howard)
Philosophy
The Universal Kinship
Moore, J. Howard (John Howard)
Evolution; Human beings; Sociology
Many men have lost their arms by accident and have learned to use
their feet as hands with wonderful skill. Not many years ago there
died in Europe an armless violinist who had during his lifetime
played to cultured audiences in most of the capitals of the world.
Some of the most accomplished of penmen hold their pen between their
toes. The man-like apes live to about the same age as man, and all
of them, like man, have beards. The anthropoid beard, too, like the
human, appears at the age of sexual maturity. The human beard often
differs in colour from the hair of the scalp, and whenever it does
it has been observed to be invariably lighter—never darker—than
the hair on the scalp. This is true among all races of men. The same
rule and the same uniformity exists among anthropoids. The races of
mankind are divided into two primary groups depending upon the shape
of the head and the character of the hair: the short-headed races
(Brachycephali), such as the Malays, Mongols, and Aryans, with round
or oval faces, straight hair, and vertical profiles; and the
long-headed races (Dolichocephali), with woolly hair and prognathous
faces, such as the Papuans and Africa races. The skin of the
short-headed races is orange or white, while the skin and hair of
the long-headed races are glossy black.
It is, at least, interesting that the orang and gibbon, who live in
Asia and its islands, where the brachycephalic races of men
supposedly arose, are themselves brachycephalic; and that the
gorilla and chimpanzee, who live in Africa, where the
dolichocephalic races chiefly live, are dolichocephalic. The gorilla
and chimpanzee also have, like the men and women of Africa, black
skin and hair; while the hair of the orang is a reddish-brown, and
its skin sometimes yellowish-white. The dentition of the anthropoids
and men is in all essentials identical. They all have two sets of
teeth: a set of milk-teeth, twenty in number, and thirty-two
permanent teeth, the permanents consisting of two incisors, one
canine, two premolars, and three molars, in each half-jaw. Man has
ordinarily twelve pairs of ribs and thirty-two vertebrae. So has the
orang. The other anthropoids have thirteen pairs of ribs. But the
number of ribs in both human and anthropoid beings is not uniform,
man occasionally having thirteen pairs, and the gorilla fourteen.
Man has also the same number of caudal vertebrae in his rudimentary
tail as the anthropoid has. The hands and feet of anthropoids, bone
for bone and muscle for muscle, correspond with those of men, no
greater structural differences existing than among different species
of men. The human foot has three muscles not found in the human
hand—a short flexor muscle, a short extensor muscle, and a long
muscle extending from the fibula to the foot. All of these muscles
are found in the anthropoid foot just as in the foot of man. There
are also the same differences between the arrangement of the bones
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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