The
Ape-Theory.-Man bears so striking a resemblance to the ape that we are forced
to conclude that he is descended from the ape.
In the first place, why argue from resemblance to descent? Or, if you argue at all, why not conclude that the ape is a degenerate man? Both arguments would be unsound, but the one would be as good as the other. What interest can you have in thus degrading man by bringing him down to the level of the apei Better argue thus: So striking is the contrast between man and ape that man could not possibly have been evolved from the ape.
The contrast consists chiefly in this, that man has a soul endowed with reason and free will, which the ape has not. This is abundantly proved by the fact that man, by means of thought and reflection, advances from one invention or discovery to another, whilst the ape, in common with other brute animals, follows his instincts and behaves today precisely as his ancestors did thousands of years ago. He has not learned to build houses, to cook his food, or to do anything characteristic of man in the most rudimentary degree of civilization. The ape's power of mimicry is a superficial attribute which furnishes no proof of reason or thought.
Even
in bodily structure the contrast is so obvious, at least to the anatomist, that
no basis for the evolutionary theory can be found in that quarter. This is
especially evident in the size of the brain, as also in the way in which the
skull is joined to the spinal column-a circumstance that determines whether the
animal is to have the erect posture of a man or the stooping posture of a
beast. "The testimony of comparative anatomy," says Bumüller,
"is decidedly against the theory of man's descent from the ape." Man
or Ape, p. 59.
Moreover,
if such descent were a fact we should find Mo some intermediate forms between
the mere ape and the fully developed man. We should have found long before
to-day what is popularly known as the missing link; but the missing link has
nowhere been discovered, either in fossil remains or in living forms of animal
life. The earth has been ransacked, but not a trace has come to light of the much sought
for ape-man. Occasionally supposed discoveries have created a flutter in the
scientific world, but they have invariably proved to be mares' nests. And yet
if Darwin's theory of infinitesimal variations covering enormous periods of
time were correct numerous specimens of intermediate forms should have been
discovered.
The distinguished
scientist Virchow, who certainly can not be accused of undue bias in the
matter, bears the following testimony to the actual state of science on the
subject:
"If we make a study
of the fossil man of the quaternary period, who came nearest to our historical
ancestors in the course of descent-or, better, of ascent we find at every turn
that he is a man like ourselves. Ten years ago, when a skull was found in a
peat-bog, among lake-dwellings, or in some ancient cave, it was thought to
furnish indications of a wild and half-developed state of human existence. Men
thought they scented the atmosphere of apedom. But since then a gradual change
has been wrought in our estimate of such remains. The old troglodytes,
lake-dwellers, and peat men have turned out to be a very respectable set of
human beings. Their heads are of such a size that many a living man to-day
would feel proud if he had one as large. We must candidly acknowledge that we
possess no fossil types of imperfectly developed men. Nay, if we bring together
all human fossils of which we have any knowledge and compare them with human
beings of the present day, we can assert without any hesitation that among living
men there is, proportionately, a much larger number of individuals of an
inferior type than among the fossil remains thus far discovered. Whether the
greatest geniuses of the quaternary age have been lucky enough to have been
preserved to our day, I dare not conjecture.... But I must say that no skull of
ape or ape-man which could have had a human possessor (or, as we take him to
mean, could have been in any half-sense human) has ever yet been found. We
cannot teach, nor can we regard as one of the results of scientific research,
the doctrine that man is descended from the ape or from any other animal."
The
Liberty of Science, p.
30f. In the Congress of Anthropologists held in Vienna in 1889 he adds the
following to the words just quoted:
"We have sought in
vain the missing links that are supposed to connect man with the ape. The
primeval man, the genuine proanthropos, has not yet been found. Anthropologists
cannot regard the proanthropos as a legitimate subject for discussion. They may
see him in their dreams, but in their waking moments they must acknowledge him
to be nowhere in sight. At Innsbruck in 1869 scientists in the fever-heat of
discussion believed they could trace the evolution of the ape into the man;
to-day we are unable to trace the derivation of one race of men from another.
At the present hour we can say that the fossil men discovered stand as far
removed from the ape as ourselves. Each living race is distinctively human, and
no race has yet been discovered which can be designated as apish or
half-apish... It can be clearly shown that in the course of five thousand years
no appreciable change of type has taken place." Dr. Bumüller sums up the
results of his study of the question in the following statements, every one of
which rests upon solid demonstration:
"On no recognized
principle of classification can man be associated with the ape; for, to say
nothing of his gifts of understanding and speech, he stands quite alone by
reason of the vastly superior development of the brain portion of his nervous
system, and hence can lay claim to an independent position in the animal
kingdom. Neither is his descent from the ape attested by science, for as yet no
connecting link has been discovered, either in the higher walks of apedom or in
the lower walks of humanity. Even the possibility of a connecting link is
disproved by the tendency of apes and half-apes, in the course of their higher
development in anatomical structure, to diverge more and more from the human
type, and by the testimony of paleontology (the science dealing with remains of
extinct species of animals preserved in the earth). Such is the present state
of scientific investigation; and its results are in harmony with the view which
the human understanding, lay and professional, has ever entertained when not
under the tyranny of theori of theories that happen ppen to be the fashion of
the hour." Man or Ape, p. 91. Munich, 1900. Dr. Zittel, an acknowledged
leader in this branch of science, enumerates in his "Outlines of
Paleontology" the most important discoveries made of human remains and
makes the following comment: "Such material as this throws no light upon
the question of race and descent. All the human bones of determinable age that
have come down to us from the European Diluvium, as well as all the skulls
discovered in caves, are identified by their size, shape, and capacity as
belonging to the homo sapiens [man], and are fine specimens of their kind. They
do not by any means fill up the gap between man and the ape."
Dr. Ranke, another
eminent paleontologist, speaks with evident sarcasm, and in reference to
certain scientific pretensions, of "the famous, or perhaps better, the
notorious" relics discovered in the Neanderthal.
Science, after its many
wanderings, is coming back to what Holy Writ has told us in words few and
simple: "And the Lord God formed man of the slime of the earth, and
breathed into his face the breath of life; and man became a living soul"
(Gen. ii. 7). "And God created man to His own image" (Gen. i. 27).
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