The apes of the Old and New Worlds now diverged from this level, and
some branch of the former gave rise to the man-like apes and man. In
bodily structure and embryonic development the large apes come very
close to man, and two recent discoveries have put their
blood-relationship beyond question. One is that experiments in the
transfusion of blood show that the blood of the man-like ape and man
have the same action on the blood of lower animals. The other is that we
have discovered, in Java, several bones of a being which stands just
midway between the highest living ape and lowest living race of men.
This ape-man (_Pithecanthropus_) represents the last of our animal and
first of our human ancestors.
_IV.--Evolution of Separate Organs_
So far, we have seen how the human body as a whole develops through a
long series of extinct ancestors. We may now take the various systems of
organs one by one, and, if we are careful to consult embryology as well
as zoology, we can trace the manner of their development. It is, in
accordance with our biogenetic law, the same in the embryo, as a rule,
as in the story of past evolution.
We take first the nervous system. In the lowest animals, as in the early
stages of the embryo, there are no nerve-cells. In the embryo the
nerve-cells develop from the outer, or skin layer, of cells. This,
though strange as regards the human nervous system, is a correct
preservation of the primitive seat of the nerves. It was the surface of
the animal that needed to be sensitive in the primitive organism. Later,
when definite connecting nerves were formed, only special points in the
surface, protected by coverings which did not interfere with the
sensitiveness, needed to be exposed, and the nerves transmitted the
impressions to the central brain.
This development is found in the animal world to-day. In such animals as
the hydra we find the first crude beginning of unorganised nerve-cells.
In the jelly-fish we find nerve-cells clustered into definite sensitive
organs. In the lower worms we have the beginning of organs of smell and
vision. They are at first merely blind, sensitive pits in the skin, as
in the embryo. The ear has a peculiar origin. Up to the fish level there
is no power of hearing. There is merely a little stone rolling in a
sensitive bed, to warn the animal of its movement from side to side. In
the higher animals this evolves into the ear.
The glands of the skin (sweat, fat, tears, etc.) appear at first as
blunt, simple ingrowths. The hair first appears in tufts, representing
the scales, from underneath which they were probably evolved. The thin
coat of hair on the human body to-day is an ancestral inheritance. This
is well shown by the direction of the hairs on the arm. As on the ape's
arm, both on the upper and lower arm, they grow toward the elbow. The
ape finds this useful in rain, using his arms like a thatched roof, and
on our arm this can only be a reminiscence of the habits of an ape
ancestor.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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