HUMAN NATURE.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 18 October 1924, Page 16

HUMAN NATURE.

MANKIND OF THE FUTURE evolviao a super variety FOBSIBLE CHANGES AS -SEEN , Bl 7 SCIENCE. • ieegrdinir to science, man 2,000,000 s h f lice u aJl express modern ideas ea + t,Y ' ■ • i^ e Wlli have sacrificed elegance .to utility. He will laugh, doubtless, m a mechanical sort. of way—unless he nave eliminated humour as unscientific—at our notions of beauty. y na P c lie ‘ ias eliminated humour like some of our advanced sages and scientists already, he will add mentally, as he surveys the statues of our‘own times, or of the days of Greece—if they !V' v . e , V ot , keen eliminated, too— WM 6t9 -R e ? S °u rt ° f L taste the - v must have had. But then they didn’t have the advantage of a standard for comparison. They’d not met Me!” lor it may be argued reasonably that human nature will still be human nature even 2,000,000 years hence, savs a- .writer m the Melbourne Age Alowmg, of course, that the universe lasts put till that time. Every o-ood Conservative is of opinion that t’he’universe is going to the dogs at an unprecedented and terrific rate of speed. p°..pne caimot sav for certain. ■Non;’ the theory ha s been worked out exceedingly well by Mr. H. Gernsback, in. .the,, august number of Science unci Invention. His views on man of the future^. -have attracted attention and have formed the basis of popular discussion in . the United , States of America. On an interpretation of his theory, supported by the theories of l'ello.u; r seientists, man, 2,000,000 years Bence, will have a huge, domed head, with a tiny, almost chinless face, small ears and large eyes, short neck, inordinately wide shoulders and a bulgnig, chest, from which little arms -will r” v"” 16 ’ or His legs will he too within the smallest compass the weight oi the great brain and the huge lungs. Qf course, he may not look anything like this. Beauty ha s a habit of flyBig right in the face of science. But theoretically he will be something like this dreadful development. -American writers have recalled Mr. H. _ G. Veils’ direful Martians, with their appalling brains and scientifically accurate hut loathsome bodies. They have'recalled, too, his ideas of the possible triumph of the octopus or the ant over mankind in the future domination ; ol the world. But while Mr. Wells, admittedly, has merely imagined. the scientists say that they have worked- out their super-man on the soundest of scientific principles. They hfive drafted the skulls of 2,000.000 years lienee on measurement of human skull development during the past 500,000 years. In support of their theory, writers joining in the discussion point to the skull of a low form of monkey, estimated to resemble that of our .remotest animal ancestor;:, the skull of a chimpanzee, as the nearest approach to man, the skull of the apelike man of Java who lived ‘‘nearly

1 >OOO,OOO years ago,” the skull of the Neanderthal race- who lived 2A),U\a.» years ago, the skull of the Aurignac race, a comparatively highly civilised people who lived in Europe sU,<w\} to 25,000 years ago, and the skull of the man of average intelligence of our own times. They employ the tie velcpnien i shown by these skulls as evidence oi the tendency of the future These contributors to the discussion observe that from time to time bones of man’s early ancestors are dug up in circumstances which allow science to estimate with reasonable accuracy how long ago these bones were in the flesh If a skull is found 20 feet under tin surface of the ground, with a cert air. kind of soil over it for five or six feet another kind of soil for two or three feet, sand and gravel for so many more feet, and so on up to the surface, it is not hard to calculate how many centuries it must have taken to deposit all these varieties of earth over the place where the original owner of the bones died. If, at the same time, thbones of certain extinct animals, whicl perished through climatic changes, arc found scattered in the same layers of soil, science has another guide post fo the age of r the bones, since the mimhei of years elapsing these climati changes have now been i'a'Tlv accurate l.v worked out. From time to time fragments have been found which fortr samples of the skulls of men. then early ancestors and their ape-like pro genitors, as far back as dialf-a-m iliion years ago. Taking these skull measure ments of the past, the ratio of their growth through the age, Mr. (boms bade has conceived for man of 2 OHUXV years hence an enormous brain case According to bis theory the bead of v- to-e >urm'-irul will be almost four times that of to-clay The skull Used will swell out like ;• great bony balloon above the .shoulders. The size of the lower jaw will .steadily decrease, since during the past ages this feature Inn. shown a steady diminution in size. While other .scientists agree with Air Gernsback on this increasing evoL.tiol;ary tendency of the brain case, they bar# set forth even more curious possibilities of the evolution of the face Professor Henri Lanotre, of Paris, an nouncecl recently that he had made an exhaustive series of ear measurements He had found that the ears of c-ity born and eitv-dwelling children were growing smaller than those of the country-born and bred. He ascribed this to the clamour and multiplicity of noises in the cities of this laud mechanical age The ouLer ear is a relfi of the animal ago of our ape like forefathers. Animals can switch and turn Iheir pars round to receive the direction of certain sounds. This is ne?°ssary, because to survive.in the wilds i.hov must know the direction f-'orn which danger approaches A s men handed more and more into tribes nnd clans, certain members of these tribes -rid clans were appointed watchmen. The others grew to depend on them for their security, and went to slom-i. knowing that there was no necessity '.-i- +c twit Hi thaw ears towards each alarming sound, /o. ; u time. +l’° cnr-twifchirifr muscles atrophied n”d lost, that newer. To-flav ‘-omnav.a----tiv-ely few people can move their ears

and twitch their scalps op and down, ilie Outer ear remained as a means or catching the aimiiiisneu nuinuer u; sounds still necessary, and us necess.t.y decreased, so the size of the ears decreased. Noisy cities might be expected to make nigger ears, out Professor Lanotre argued that a great number of these sounds was unnecessary, and had no relation to the lixo of man, but was distracting. Nature ■-vas catting down among the city people the size of the outer ear to diminish the number of sounds it could carry. In the country, where there were fewer sounds the ear remained the same normal size. Man’s neck will become shorter and thicker, and his shoulders much broader, in order to carry the weight of the enormous head- As the air becomes more rarefied through its steady, though, slight, leakage int > space, his chest will become greatly 7 enlarged in order to take advantage if v. hat is left. Air. Gernsback points m’t in tliis respect the phenomenon of the Cholos Indians, who live in T 1 Andes of Pern, and never come below 12,000 feet. At that altitude the ai“ 's much thinner, and the Indians haw developed extraordinary chest measurement.. Through the fast-growing us--' of vehicles to cover distance, instead of leg power, the- l e ,y s will th’ 1 ' ‘'lid stten'mtod and rtrnilnrtv the erm""ill dwindle with decreasing demand opon them. And Mr. Gernsback conjectures, too, the possibilities of life on Mars,’ and the type of Martian likely to be developed there. As conditions on Ma. -. during its earlier stages were approximately the same a.s on the Earth, lie considers that the dominating inteP.i genee has still a partly human form. The gravitational pull on Mars is inv.c' less than on the Earth. A man who weighs 1501 b on Earth will weigh onl. - 531 bon Mars. A human being can jump four feet, and the Mart'an eleven feet, with the same effort. His M-”-tinn has a large head, with hrttedly~ like antennae registering vibrations, eyes .something like those of the ’ohrter. an elephantine nose, large bhtOke ears a tall body with enormous lungs, ami very large feet to keep him s«m. toppling over. '>-] n ; ,vi msv- something 1 i I<-■ Mm! Br|.. then, he mav not