DARWIN'S DESCENT OF MAN

Tuapeka Times, Volume III, Issue 180, 20 July 1871, Page 7

DARWIN'S DESCENT OF MAN

" Descended from the Conqueror " sounds well in many ears ; it is more than eight hundred years ago. But what are Garter King-at-Arms or Sir Benard Burke as pedigreehunters compared with Mr. Darwin 1 The author of " Descent of Man " take us through hundreds and hundreds of ages, till we can no longer give any account of time, and introduces us to our ancestry— a group of marine animals. He says, "By considering the embryologicai structure of man — the homologies which he presents with the lower animals the rudiments which he retains — and the re-_ versions to which he is liable, we- can partly recall in imagination the former condition of our early progenitors, and can approximately place them in their proper position in the zoological series. We learn that mm is descended from a hairy quadruped, furnished with a tail and pointed ears, propably arboreal In its habits, and an inhabitant of the Old World. This creature, if its whole structure had been examined by", a naturalist, would have been classed among the Quadramana, as surely as' 'would the common and- still more ancient progenitor of the Old and New EWorld in ohkeys. The Quadra mana and all higher mammals are probably derived from an ancient marsupial animals, and through a long lino of diversified forms, either from s»me reptile-like or some amphibian-like 1 breature/a'fid fh'is again" fron^sb.m^sJkUicejini^ obscurity of the' past, we can* see' tfiat the early pr'ogeijitor o'f ','SlK^h^ Verted tirata must . have been', ah/ aquatic, aninia], .proy.id.ed \vitJi.\{).ranch|B, (r ,'»vith the two sexes., united^ in: .the.ftame- individual, and wjth the.- most important organs of the body (such.;*fl& the brain and" heart)' 'im perfectly' ' developed. Tliis animal seems to have been more likje the larvae ,of our existing marine AsVidians tfian any other known form. . '. . ,$n regard to bodily size and strength,- w.e .do not know wetber man is descended from some comparatively small species, like the chimpanzee, or from one as powerful as the' gorilla, and therefore we cannot say whether man has become larger and stronger or smaller and weaker, in comparison with his propjentore." Afc the end .of" his work Mr. Darwin gays-: — The main conclusion arrived at in this work, ' namely, that mnn is de. tended from some lowely organiHed form, will, I regret to think, be highly distasteful to many persons'. For my own parfc^ I would be as soon descended from that heroic little monkey who braved its dreaded enemy ia order to save the life of its keeper, or from the old baboon who descending from the mountains, carried away in triumph his young comrade fr un a crowd of astonished dogs — aa from a savatre who delight* to tori lire his enemies^ offerer up bloody BiircHfwßj pratrt-ce»-is^*trcktewitl out rvtnorst — knows " on, Teeeney, and ia haunt* tl by the-gr >ssoat superstitions."