| OCR Text |
Show 454 DARWINISM CHAP. gression equally with the feet, and the hands arc. onl~ adapted for uses similar to those of our hands when the amm.alis a~ rest, and then but clumsily. Lastly, the apes arc all hairy am_mals, like the majority of other mammals, man alone hav1~~ a smooth and almost naked skin. The e numerous and ~tnkm g differences, even more than those of the skeleton and mternaJ Fro. 37.-Chimpanzcc (Troglodytes niger). anatomy, point to an enormous!! remote ep?ch when the race that was ultimately to develop mto man diverged fro:n that other stock which continued the a,nimal type and ult1matrly produced the existing varieties of anthropoid apes. Summary of the Animal Chamcteristics of llfan. The facts now very briefly summarised amount alm ost to a demonstration that man, in his bodily structure, hn ~ h<;t>n derived from the lower animals, of which he is the culmmat1ng development. In his possession of rudimentary structures XV DARWINISM APPLIED TO MAN 455 which arc functional in some of the mammalia; in the n~merous variations of his muscles and other organs agreeing With ch~racters which arc constant in some apes; in his embryomc development, absolutely identical in character with that of mammalia in genera.], and clo3ely resem lJlincr in it details that of the higher quadrumana; in the diseas •s which he has in common with other mammalia; and in the wonderful approximation of his skeleton to those of one or other of the anthropoid apes, we have an amount of evidence in this direction which it seems impossible to explain awny. And this evidence will appear more forcible if we con. icler for a moment what the rejection of it implies. For the only alternative supposition i , that man has been . pecially createdthat is to ay, ha. been produced in some quite different way from other animals and altogether inclepend ntly of them. But in that case the rudimentary structures, the animal-like variations, the identical conr ·e of development, nnd all the other animal characteristics he possesses are deccptiv , aml inevitably lead us, as thinking beings making use of the reason which is our noblest and mo t distinctive feature, into crros. error. We cannot believe, however, that a careful tudy of tho facts of natnre leads to conclusions directly opposed to the truth ; and, as we seek in vain, in our phy ical structure and the course of its development, for any indication of an ori o-in independent of the rest of the animal world, we are compelled to ~·eject the idea of "special creation " for man, as being entirely unsupported by facts as well as in the highest degree improuable. The Gt>ological Antiquity of J}[cw. The evidence we now possess of the exac;t nnture of the resemblance of man to the various species of anthropoid apes, shows us that he has little special affinity for any one rather than another specie. , while he differs from them all in several important characters in which they agree with each other. The conclusion to be drawn from these Lwt. is, that hi points of affinity conne?t him with the whole group, while hi special peculiarities equally separate him from the whole group, and that he must, therefore, have diverged from the common ancestral form before the existing types of anthropoid apes • |
