UC-NRLF

1. I I lur

EVOLUTION
OF MAN

ByWILHELA BOLSCHE

LIBRA!

^^"^siBMtf^

THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA

GIFT OF

Junius Adams

THE EVOLUTION

OF MAN

BY

WILHELM .BOLSCHE

Translated by ERNEST UNTERMANN

SIXTH THOUSAND

CHICAGO

CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY

1906

Copyright, 1905
BY CHARLES H. KERK & COMPANY

.Ijjgggj^ 241
THE HENNEBERRY CO., PRS., CHICAGO.

0 C

PREFACE

Whoever claims to be an educated man, a man
who thinks, must acquire a knowledge of the
outline of modern scientific research and of the
theories concerning the descent of man. No
thought is so essential and sublime as that about
ourselves. One may be skeptical as to the value
of these things, but before any discussion of
them is possible, one must, above all, think.

There must be no class distinction in view of
these questions. Wherever great philosophies
and movements in their interest have appeared
in history, they have not addressed themselves
merely to the kings of the spirit, but instinctively
to the simple man of the people, to that place
where the heart of the people is beating. Since
natural science to-day claims to offer a new basis
for a scientific world philosophy, it must again
address itself to the common people. It may
seem that scientific methods of expression and
thought are an obstacle to popularization. If so,
we must take so much the more pains to over-

457

PREFACE

come this obstacle and find a popular interpreta-
tion for our thoughts. The present little volume
is addressed to the widest circle of readers, even
to those who are as yet unacquainted with a
goodly number of excellent but much more volu-
minous works concerning the same subject. This
little work is reduced to such a size that it may
easily be perused in one leisure hour. Neverthe-
less I think that the facts which it presents will
furnish material for independent reflection in
serious hours.

As for its scientific basis, I have only to men-
tion the name of Darwin. Whoever thinks him-
self beyond this name in our days is specially in-
vited to analyze his theories once more by the
help of this short and comprehensive sketch. In
its more intricate details my presentation of the
matter is naturally based on certain ideas of
Ernst Haeckel, but I must also give due credit to
the great influence which the more recent re-
searches of Herman Klaatsch of Heidelberg have
exerted upon me. Whenever I have ventured
beyond the line of facts, or combination of facts,
I have done so from my own firm conviction
that a thinking man is not dragged down by all
these relations with the animal world, but is

PREFACE

rather strengthened and furthered in the con-
sciousness of his own ethical powers. He then
appears to me so much more triumphant above
his animal nature, standing victoriously above the
dark foundation of his own existence. Man and
his history reach back into the primitive world
of animal monsters, but this animal nature, this
primitive world, lies prostrate at his feet over-
come by himself.

WlLHELM BOELSCHE.

Friedrichshagen,
New Year's Day, 1904.

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

A lovely picture extends before my eyes. A
virgin meadow stretches down a valley clad in
emerald green. Innumerable blossoms of dande-
lions and blue-bells rise from it like golden and
violet flames. A gray granite wall, a witness of
primordial days, forms the background to this
fresh wave of full life. Above it, like a dark
blue stage setting, rise the fir forest and the op-
posite mountain wall. And far. far beyond it, al-
most merging into the soft blue sky with a
slightly deeper tint, appears the outline of the
giant mountains. Now, a snow-white cloud,
glistening in the sunlight, floats slowly and phan-
tom-like towards me, coming down from the
unknown distance beyond, and disappearing
above me in the glittering light. The bright glow
of the sun is diffused throughout it all, lending
charm to the flowery meadow, the granite and the

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

mountain forest — a great unity sunk in harmo-
nious tranquility. Now, I hear far-off voices.
Human beings are passing by, shielded from my
sight by the great stone blocks. They are strang-
ers, I do not know them. How much may be
hidden by such distant voices — good and bad!
What an infinite variety is comprised in this
little word "man," how much that is noble and
sublime — and how much that is brutal ! And yet,
while those feeble undulations of the air which
carry those voices toward me are still trembling
in my ear, I am thinking of the simple message
of the gospel, according to which all men without
distinction are my brothers. Our civilization
has at last risen to the point of impressing us
with the fact that this many-headed mass of fif-
teen hundred million people on the surface of this
globe are bound by one common tie of sacred-
ness which is expressed in the word, man ! They
are all one unit, these human beings, one great
family assembled on the surface of this globe,
ready to share their sins, to forgive one another,
to enjoy their pleasures together, to go hand in
hand on their way through this great valley of
riddles, the universe.

But a clearer and sharper sound, not articu-
lated into words, mingles with those indistinct

10

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

voices. It is the fine voice of a little baby, this
monotonous and clear wail which sounds so help-
less and yet stirs so much compassion!

We all have grown up, we all have developed
from such a small baby, such a bud of humanity.
And my glance wanders once more over the
green meadow. All those golden blossoms of
dandelions and all the blue-bells have developed
from a bud. Every one of those plants has
grown up into the sunlight from some simple
germ. And it seems to me that it is this same
sun which neither of them can dispense with.
The little rosebud of humanity in its cradle needs
the sun quite as much as that brown, rough
bud of yonder meadow flower. If the sun above
us which is floating in the ice-cold solitude of
space nmetfas ix millions miles a.wav were to be
extinguished to-day, humanity would perish just
as surely as the kingdom of meadow flowers.

And from the depths of the human soul,
whence also the lessons of the gospels have come,
still another voice whispers into my inner ear.
It is that same voice which was first heard in the
wisdom of ancient India, and it said that the tie
of common interest, of brotherhood, is not con-
fined to man and man, that it comprises all living
things of this globe, all things which grow up

11

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

under' tne rays of the sun in the silent grasp of
secret, natural laws, and gradually develop to the
summit of humanity. It is that other simple mes-
sage which tells us : "Thou shalt not torture any
animal uselessly; thou shalt hot wantonly break
any flower, for they too are distant relations in
the great flow of life, they too are still your
brothers in the unfathomable recesses of nature.
Helpless stands that flower, or that glittering lit-
tle beetle before you, just like a trembling, little
child. But the child grows up into a man, and
who knows what this flower or that beetle may
become some day, or what may have become of
others like them, millions of years ago!

It is such sentiments as these which every
one of us feels in his or her best moments which
seem to me fitting for the discussion of such a
tremendous question as that of the evolution of
man.

Wherever the compassion of man can find its
way, there the blessed and divine longing for
understanding may also wend its steps without
fear or shame. Whoever has so much love that
he can feel it for an animal may also approach
with perfectly clear conscience that other ques-
tion, whether the blood relationship that freely
binds him to other human beings does not per-

12

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

haps extend still further, whether he himself
may not have developed from an animal. And
he may recognize with calm conviction that this
fact cannot have any more significance morally
than that other fact which is affirmed a thousand
times every day and sanctified by the deep love
of every mother — the fact that even the greatest
man must have first developed from a primitive,
human bud, from a child which can neither
speak nor walk, which germinates in the dark
recesses of nature, just as that blue bell out there
develops under the hot rays of the sun. And if
the individual develops in this way, why should
not all humanity have developed in this way,
once upon a time? •*•*

It was about a million years ago. If a man
could have had the opportunity to wander
through our present European continent, with a
rifle in his hands, he would have seen in those
days a very strange country. He might have
imagined that he was in the interior of Africa
as we know it to-day. He would have tramped
for( weeks over immense prairies in Southern
Europe, dotted sporadically with a few dense
woods, and out of the wilderness of this green '
ocean of grass, he would have started before
him innumerable herds of antelopes, giraffes and

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

animals resembling wild horses. From his camp
near a rippling spring, he could have watched
in the clear moonlight, such colossal forms com-
ing to drink and to bathe as were once seen by
the first hunters who^ ventured into the interior
of Africa by way of Cape Colony. There, he
could have seen elephants of various species, with
two and four tusks, or even with tusks bent
downward like those of the walrus, massive
rhinoceros, and ponderous hippopotami. Behind
them he could have heard the roaring of lions,
panthers, and giant wild-cats armed with saber-
like teeth. Wandering further north into locali-
ties which are now the scenes of a highly ad-
vanced civilization, he would have entered the
most impenetrable, primeval forest, similar to
that in which Stanley in the heart of Africa
experienced all the sensations of daring conquest
of an absolutely wild tropical country. Out of
the dense undergrowth, splendid palms rose to-
ward the sunlight. Parrots of many colors
shrieked, the features of a large anthropoid' ape,
similar to our gorilla, might peep suddenly out
of the thick covering of foliage, piercing the dar-
ing intruder with sharp glances. And above it
all, there trembled the atmosphere of a hot cli-
mate.

14
#t-^£*-*-*.

THE EVOLUTION OK MAN

Our wanderer would have been still more
surprised if he could have compared our present-
day maps with the road traveled by him in those
primeval days. Where the blue surface of the
Mediterranean now extends so widely that a
navigator cannot see the shores on either side,
he would have advanced over dry ground from
horizon to horizon through prairies inhabited
by giraffes and forests peopled by monkeys. And
where to-day the red rose of the Alps grows
upon dizzy heights near the grim ice of the
glaciers on mountain passes, there he would have
found nothing but wooded hills in which his
geologically trained eye might have discovered
traces of a slow but irresistible rise. And where
to-day the sun is sending its glowing rays down
upon bare mountain ranges, as in the heart of
France, he could have observed the horizon tinted
blood-red, a reflection of the boiling lava of vol-
canoes.

A strange world in an immeasurably far off
time!

A million years is a tremendous period of time
for human minds to grasp. If the history of
human civilization is traced by written chronicles,
it does not take us back beyond six thousand
years. One might fill entire libraries with events

15

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

through which human beings have passed merely
in a period of one thousand years. Here, we
are supposed to place side by side thousands of
thousands of years. What wonder then if the
mirror of research transports us back to those
primeval times into a different Europe, composed
of different seas, countries, mountains and cli-
mates.

It is the so called "Tertiary Period" into
which we have looked.

Four great periods are distinguished by the
historians of the earth, in speaking of the change
and succession of animal and plant life as it is
discovered in the course of the many million
years during which it has developed. We may
use the simple Latin numbers to designate these
periods: Primus, the First, Secundus, the Sec-
ond, Tertius, the Third, Quartus, the Fourth.
There is the Primary period, the very first in
which we discover traces of living beings on our
earth. It was then that the forests were green,
the fossil remains of which we now know as
coal. Strange and uncouth newts/crawled about
in their shade. The sea, the shores of which
were covered by these trees, was alive with long
forgotten crustaceans^and fishes. Then followed
the Secondary period, in which the terrible giant

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

saunans, typified by Ichthyosaurus, infested land
and sea. After that we reach the third great
period, the Tertiary period, when Europe had
the climate and the fauna of present day Africa,
such as giraffes, elephants and monkeys. And
when this epoch came to an end, the Quaternary
period began, with which our entire historical
tradition is identified and in which we are stll
living to-day. We do not meet any familiar
objects until we reach this last period. The sur-
face of the earth then assumes the form to which
we are now accustomed. All things come closer
to us. The things that lie beyond are strange to
us, like an unknown creation, like a dream of
some other planet.

And yet man lived even in that Tertiary period.

No song, no heroic story, gives any informa-
tion about him. But where the voice of tradi-
tion, the chronicles of conscious humanity are
silent, there we find other witnesses that speak
to us — the stones. The tradition of mankind ex-
pires within the Quaternary period. There is
an extreme moment when even the most ancient
inscriptions of the Chinese, the Babylonians, and
the Egyptians become mute. Written characters
disappear and with them the earliest direct voice
from the cradle of humanity about itself. But

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

beyond that point we are made aware of a very
important event in the development of this earth
which took place in this Quaternary period, the
traces of which are still visibly impressed in the
rocks. It is the great ice age. For many thou-
sand years, colossal masses of glacial ice were
piled on top of the continents of Europe and
North America. Large herds of mammoth, a
species of elephant, covered with a thick coating
of hair as a protection against the cold, grazed
along the edge of these glaciers, just as in our
day the musk-ox and the reindeer are doing in
the countries near the North Pole. Undeniable
and plain traces of human beings are still pre-
served from that period.

In the sand, which remained when the glaciers
flowed into the caves which were formed by the
mighty ice waters boring their way through the
lime rocks, the crude and simple stone tools
have been found with which the men of that
period hunted the mammoth. The walls of such
caves in France are still covered with colored
pictures in which the men of that ice age have
drawn unmistakable pictures of the mammoth.
As it happens we are enabled to test the accuracy
of those pictures, since well preserved bodies of
mammoth with skin and hair are found in the

18

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

ice of Siberia. We have also found the skulls
and bones of those men, so that we now have
a fairly good idea of their characteristics, in spite
of the fact that all written and oral traditions
of the civilized nations now living have com-
pletely forgotten their ancestors of the ice age.
Even the most sublime symbolical picture of the
evolution of civilization, the Bible, does not men-
tion them anywhere.

But those simple stone tools, especially knives
and arrowheads, which give us such reliable
information of man as the contemporary of the
mammoth, are occasionally found also in the
strata of rock which were already present when
the ice age with its glaciers and mammoths be-
gan. We find in them remains of that most prim-
itive human civilization, together with bones of
a giant elephant, who was not only larger and
of different form than the mammoth, but also
older — the so-called South-elephant (Elephas
meridionalis.) But this South-elephant was still
living in laurel groves and under magnolia blos-
soms in France and Germany, instead of feeding
on reindeer lichens on the edges of the glaciers.
With this elephant we have come into the middle
of the genuine Tertiary period. This Tertiary
period, the more we follow it backwards, takes

19

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

us into a warmer climate instead of a colder one.
In the middle of this period we meet with that
very picture which I drew in the beginning. Eu-
rope then had the giraffe plains and the primeval
forests of the present day inhabited by anthro-
poid apes, and there is no longer any doubt that
the oldest tools of man, which we can distinguish
as such, lead us even to the limit of this very
hot, middle period of the Tertiary age. Man is
even then a part of that picture ! He is himself
almost a million years old on the surface of
this globe, and had simple stone weapons and
other tools which he used in his fight with the
giant animals of that time. In other words,
he possessed the indubitable beginnings of civ-
ilization.

It seems to me that we cannot trace matters
up to this point without confronting this further
question: Is it not possible that man may be
still older?

With this venerable age of one million years
he is a part of the wonders of the primitive
world, he drifts into the company of still stranger
animals than the mammoth, into other climates
than those of present-day Europe, the Alps of
which were then in the first stage of formation
and the seas of which had not yet found their

30

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

present level. So it really would not change
matters very much even if we found that we
must trace him further back into still more an-
cient and strange landscapes of this globe. It
is true that all traces of civilization disappear
at this point. We do not know of a single piece
of flint stone in the first half of the Tertiary
period, or even of the saurian period following
it, which would show the traces of the human
hand. But long before we reach this point, we
may observe a gradual divergence of these flint
stone tools. They grow cruder and cruder. Is
it too wild a speculation to suppose that men
may have existed even beyond that time who
may not have possessed sufficient civilization even
to fashion the simplest stone tools ? In that case,
we could not expect to find any stone tools as
witnesses.

But, one might say, there should at least be
genuine human bones preserved in a fossil state
in the solid rocks together with skeletons of the
ichthyosaurians ? Still, this objection would not
carry much weight. We know very well that not
all of the living beings which once lived upon
this earth left their fossil bones behind. The
bones may have been destroyed, for human bones
particularly are not very durable. Or they may

,./,

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

be buried in certain places of the earth which
we cannot investigate to-day, because they may
be at the bottom of the sea, or covered by the
perennial ice of polar regions. How often has
not this earth been shaken through and through
and turned inside out in these long, long periods ?
Strata, which were once sediment at the bottom
of the sea and which are still full of sea shells,
are now found on the high summits of the Alps.
On the other hand, entire mountain ranges,
gr©und into sand, are now found in the flat
sandstone of the plains, or at the bottom of the
sea. Many of the remains of the primitive world
have certainly been destroyed in this wild chaos,
have been ground into powder, or broken to
pieces. We get a vague conception of, this when
we see that even the gigantic monsters of those
primitive days have frequently left but one single
bone, a thigh bone or skull of one single indi-
vidual. That is to say, while thousands and
thousands of individuals of this species lived once
upon a time, only the scant remains of one single
individual have come down to our time.

Then too, there is still another possibility which
is far more interesting. It is very probable that
we may not recognize the man of those far dis-
tant days, even if some of his bones were pre-
22

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

served. For man himself might have become
transformed in his structure, and his bones might
differ from ours. Might it not be possible that
his bones might look so strange to us that
scientists might have described them as belong-
ing to some other being, little aware of the fact
that these remains represented just the thing for
which they were looking?

Similar ideas have ever played a role in various
tales and legends. There, we read that the men
of the primitive world were gnomes, or again
giants, Cyclopes with one eye, or fauns with
goat's feet, tails and pointed ears. When mam-
moth bones were first found, it was said that
they were the actual remains of such old fabulous
men, bones of the giants Gog and Magog, or of
St. Christopher. Of course, this was nonsense,
and the supposed human bones were nothing
but honest mammoth bones with no relation to
primitive man. But, we of to-day have really
something better than mere remains to rely on,
we have reliable scientific data for the theory
that men with essentially different characteris-
tics from ours existed not so very long ago.

I mentioned, a while ago, that we have remains
of skeletons of men who lived in the ice age,
the age of mammoths. But these men of the

23

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

Two remains of skulls of palaeo-diluvian Men, with strongly
protruding eye-bumps. Both cuts are side views. The cut at
the top represents the skull-cap (the only part which was pre-
served) found in 185C in a cave of the Neander valley near
Dxisseldorf, Germany. The cut at the bottom represents a fairly
complete skull, found in 1887 in a cave of Spy, near Namur,
France, together with equally aged bones of Mammoths,
Rhinoceros, and Cave-Bears.

24

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

ice age, who are still relatively close to us when
compared to the more distant primitive periods,
are not so very much behind in their civilization
when compared to certain savage peoples of to-
day. Even in our day, there are certain tribes,
for instance in South America, who are not
familiar with metals, who fashion all their tools
and weapons out of stone, horn, or wood, and
who therefore are actually living in the "Stone
Age" similar to those primitive mammoth hunt-
ers. Nevertheless, if one of us had met one of
these primtive ice age men, we should have been
somewhat startled by the features of that man.
For his face, his size and his limbs would have
appeared to us perceptibly different from ours,
even from those of the savages of the present
day. True, no one would have doubted that this
was still a "man," but something strange, some-
thing divergent, would certainly have startled us
in this type of the "Ice-a^e man." We may still
reconstruct this man tolerably well from the re-
mains of his skeleton.

It was in 1856 that such genuine human bones,
with strangely divergent characteristics, were dis-
covered for the first time and scientifically ana-
lyzed. It was in the so-called Neander Valley
near Dusseldorf (Rhineland). Some working

25

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

men were clearing out an old cave. They found
an old and partly decayed skeleton. A phy-
sician, Dr. Fuhlrott, happened along and saved as
many of these bones as he could obtain. In this
way they reached a museum, and they are now
on exhibition in the Provincial Museum of Bonn.
[The student is especially surprised by the con^
Istruction of the skull of this man, which is very
flat in the part directly above the brain, and
has thick and unsightly bumps right over the
cavities of the eyes. Even the lowest Australian
has no such bumps on his forehead to-day.

For a long time the genuineness of this dis-
covery was doubted, and no correct conclusions
could be formed because the experts could not
agree on the period to which this Neander Val-
ley skull should be assigned. Some even doubted
whether this man was really very old and whether
he could have been a contemporary of the mam-
moth. Rudolph Virchow then took part in the
discussion and claimed that whatever might be
the antiquity of these bones, and granting that
they might be genuine bones of a contemporary
of the mammoth, they certainly did not belong to
a normal man, but rather to one who was dis-
eased. The divergence from the present human
type was attributed to the effects of disease. It

REMAINS OF PITHECANTHROPUS ERECTUS,

the mysterious being found by Eugene Dubois on the island of
Java. The cut shows a skull-cap, seen from the side and from
the top, with its bumps above the eyes; furthermore several
views of the left thigh-bone, and two molar teeth. The thigh-
bone has on its inner side some abnormal formations due, proba-
bly, to some wound which this specimen received while alive.

27

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

was supposed that this Neander Valley man suf-
fered from softening of the bones when a baby,
from gout when an old man, and that at some
time in his life his skull had been crushed by a
blow and healed imperfectly. And in this way
the bumps over the eyes and the other strange
characteristics were supposed to have been pro-
duced. But this very daring assumption, which
looked far-fetched when examined in detail, was
refuted when Professor Fraipont, in 1887, dis-
covered two human skeletons in another cave
near Namur (France), the so-called cave of Spy.
These skeletons had skulls with the same strange
bumps on them. One could not easily assume
that all these individuals had endured the same
improbable sufferings. Some time after that, a
whole mass of remains of such bones, belonging
to not less than ten individuals of different ages,
were found near Krapina in Austria. They evi-
dently represented the remains of a prehistoric
cannibal feast, and the poor victims who had
been roasted on that occasion had all of them
the same structure of skull as that of the Neander
Valley man. And, finally Schwalbe and Klaatsch
have demonstrated scientifically that the Neander
Valley bones were not at all diseased.

It is quite certain, then, that a type of man

28

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

with such skulls has once existed, and the dis-
coveries at Spy and Krapina have shown at the
same time to what period that man belonged.
They were found together with the bones of the
mammoth and cave bear of exactly the same age.
They were therefore remains of "Ice-age" men,
and these ice-age men still showed this strange
divergence from the present living type of
"man."

Now, let us imagine that these variations con-
tinued far into the more primitive period. The
traces of civilization, as we have seen, finally
disappear altogether. Man himself, if present
in those very primitive periods, would not have
been advanced far enough to fashion the crudest
weapons out of flint stone. And we may log-
ically draw conclusions from this lack of ability
as to his physical constitution. The man of the
Ice-age was able to fashion weapons from flint-
stones, and yet he was far behind us in the struc-
ture of his skull. How far behind, then, in the
structure of his skull, would be a man without
knowledge of flint stone tools?

The line of research here absolutely dissolves
into nothing. Man diverges more and more from
the present type of human beings. He finally
varies to an extent which makes him absolutely

29

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

indistinguishable and hides "Man" in beings
which are not at all like him.

We must recall to mind the millions of years
of the primitive world, the infinite succession of
time, and think on and on along this line of
natural development, just as we would in the
case of a star which, once started on a defintie
course from a certain point, continues to move
and move incessantly in a certain fixed direc-
tion.

But now that we have gone so far, we feel
a pardonable curiosity and a certain daring.
Would it not be possible for our penetration,
once we have conceived of these possibilities, to
forge ahead still farther into the mystery of
things, get at the facts of all these "possibilities,"
and ask what disguise man might have adopted ?
What may be those strange primitive beings, the
fossil remains of which we might perhaps find
and in which he may be most likely hidden ?

We have at least a starting point. We per-
ceive, so to say, the mathematical point where
the course begins to deviate, that is to say, we
may start from these grotesque skulls of the ice-
age with their crude bumps above the eyes. May
we not speculate a little further as to the next
physical transformation, and so forth?

30

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

It is precisely at this point that we meet with
something which has the great advantage of not
being merely a logical assumption, but rather a
tangible scientific fact.

The beautiful island of Java in the tropics has
long been known on account of its violent vol-
canic eruptions. As late as the Tertiary period
there was an eruption of a certain volcano which
buried an entire section of land with loose masses
of ashes in the same way in which Mt. Vesuvius
buried the city of Pompeii in historical times.
On this occasion a multitude of living beings were
buried. Their bones remained in that volcanic
mass and were later on carried to a certain place
by waters washing their way through this mass.
The name of this place to-day is Trinil, and the
old mass of volcanic ashes is now a part of the
bed of the Bengavan river. In 1891 a Dutch
physician, Eugen Dubois, made excavations in
the banks of this river, and incidentally he dis-
covered masses of old bones, mostly the bones
of large mammals of the Tertiary period, such
as elephants and hippopotami which do not live
in Java in our day. But among those bones
Dubois found also a thigh bone and skull cap and
a pair of molar teeth of a peculiar creature which
had evidently lived in those primitive days with

31

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

those animals at the time wherv the eruption of
that volcano occurred.

This creature must have had a strange likeness
to human beings. It had almost the height of
a man. Its upper thigh indicates that it had
the habit of walking upright. Indeed, it was so
manlike that a number of authorities in anatomy,
for instance Rudolph Virchow, declared without
hesitation that it was a genuine human bone.
But matters were different with the skull. Flat,
without a forehead, and with bumps above his
eyes, this skull seemed in its fundamental plan to
be an extreme exaggeration of the Neander Val-
ley skull. But this exaggeration went so far
that the human likeness receded against a new
likeness. This Trinil skull resembled strikingly
— a monkey skull. And it was -even possible to
name the definite species of monkey which it
resembled most nearly, a monkey living to this
day in Southern Asia, the so-called gibbon. The
gibbon is the nearest relative of the ourang-
outang, the gorilla and the chimpanzee. The
present living species are all of them much smal-
ler than this strange creature of Trinil was. But
that old skull was, in many respects, so like that
of the gibbon that quite a number of grave ex-
perts declared that it belonged to an extinct
species of gibbon which had the size of a man.

32

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

Still, a few others did not agree with this
idea. The cavity of the skull, so far as it was
preserved, was filled with gypsum in order to
find out how much space it contained for a brain.
The figure ascertained by this means was ap-
proximately half-way between a gorilla and the
lowest Australian aborigine. That is to say, its
brain capacity exceeded by far that of a gibbon
without however coming anywhere near that of
present-day man or even the ice-age man. What
sort of a creature could this be? The scientists
disagreed. "A very gibbon-like man," said some
of them. "A very man-like gibbon," said the
others. The discoverer Dubois took a middle
course ; he baptized this creature with the double
name of Pithej^njftror^^

This disagreement of the scientists is very in-
structive in our research. We learn, as an actual
fact, that in the Tertiary period there still existed
on this globe certain creatures which stood about
half-way between a man and a gibbon. Their
skull exaggerated those characteristics, by which
the ice-age man was distinguished from present-
day man, to such an extent that this creature ap-
proached a new station which we have long
known by the name of. monkeys. In this way
we are given a definite goal indicating the first

38

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

disguise in which we may look for man further
back and discover him, so to say, by evidences
which reveal his presence beyond that limit where
he began to deviate entirely from the present
type of. man.

Is it perhaps possible that at a certain histor-
ical stage man simply merges in the monkey?
Here another very old and venerable line of
reasoning, long used even in the most exact re-
search of nature, comes to our aid.

It was in 1735 that Linnaeus, a great^scientist,
performed a monumental work. He then gave
us the first comprehensive system of nature's
forms. He arranged these forms in three great
kingdoms, minerals, plants, animals. And within
these kingdoms he arranged the various forms
in systematic succession. In this way, he fur-
nished us with a system of plants, and of ani-
mals, which, in spite of its defects, gave us the
first foundation for a comparative view and log-
ical sequence by which we could hope to discover
the natural connections of these forms in their
main outlines.

In performing this necessary work of genius,
Linnaeus naturally had to solve the question:
Where am I to place man? He did not hesitate
for one moment. He placed man in the animal

34

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

kingdom on account of his physical structure,
which showed that he belonged to the mammals/
and more definitely in the group of monkeys.
Indeed, if we wish to build up any system even
in our day, that is the only logical conclusion
at which we can arrive. Man is not a simple
mineral, he is a living being. Unless he is fed,
he dies; that is to say, his form of existence is
that of living beings who are compelled on pain
of death to assimilate food. If we pinch his arm,
he cries out ; in other words, he feels, and he has
that peculiar faculty which we are accustomed
to associate with the word "life," the faculty of
suj)jjejrtiyjr feeling. Furthermore his food is of
a definite kind. He cannot feed on pure mineral
substances, he requires either vegetable or animal
matter, he needs bread instead of stones, and of
the elements of the air he can utilize only oxygen.
This classes him with the other members of the
animal kingdom in distinction from plants which
feed on the soil.

Again, in the animal kingdom there are two
main groups. It is true that Linnaeus himself
was not familiar with this distinction, but we
have learned it since then. The individual body
of the animal in one of these groups consists
of only one so-called cell. It is one solitary little

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

lump of animated substance. The individual
body in the other gjroup of animals is composed
of many such cells, which form a sort of co-
operative association with division of labor. Well
then, the body of man is built up with billions
of such cells in the most wonderful manner.
It consists of living building material, the cells,
which make up its muscles, its blood, its skin and
even its bones. In other words, man belongs to
the group of animals that contain many cells,
(lie does not belong to the uni-cellular low arch-
Ityjges/ he is not a microscopically small in-
ifusorium.ft

This higher group of animals is again di-
vided into a number of groups, among which
we must make our choice. There are the sponges,
the polypi, the jelly-fish, the worms, the star-
fish, the echinoderms, the crustaceans, the in-
sects, the snails, the shells, and, finally, ajjrpup
which is distinguished by a spinal cord located
above the digestive tract and protected by a more
or less solid structure which serves at the same
time for the support of the body, a backbone.
We call this last group the vertebrates. No other
group has this characteristic structure, and it is
plain, at the first glance, that man can belong-
only to this group, because he has a spinal cord

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

AN OLD ORANG-OUTANG.
His face is disfigured by peculiar excrescences on both cheeks.

37

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

and a backbone. Within this group of verte-X
ibrates we distinguish the fish, which breathe
] in the water with gills instead of lungs; man
i breathes through lungs, therefore he is not
| a fish. Then follow the amphibians, that is to
I say, the newts and frogs that breathe alternately

• through gills and lungs. A frog, for instance,
i breathes through gills, when a tadpole, and ac-
quires his lungs later on. Human beings do

t not have this double method of breathing. Fur-
I thermore, the reptiles, that is to say, lizards,
i crocodiles, turtles and related animals have blood

which changes its temperature from warm to

cold and vice versa. Their blood is cold when
' the air which they breathe is cold, but it is warm
j when the sun shines upon them. These animals
, do not yet possess their own heating apparatus

within them. The human body heats itself, it is
! always warm, hence man is not a reptile. The
I two last groups of vertebrates are always warm.

These groups consist of birds and mammals.

• Since we have to choose between these two, we
. must investigate further. No bird suckles its
' young, but the human mother does that, and all
i mammals do, therefore we belong on the side
' of the mammals. Now these mammals are again
I divided into two great sections. Those of one

38

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

1 section lay eggs, the Australian duckbills. The

! mammals of the other section have done away
with that; the child when born is far more ma-
ture. Every human mother testifies to the fact

!< that human beings are not duckbills, but belong
to a higher class. And now we come to a final
choice. We look at the hands and teeth of
man. Man is not a whale, the hands of which
have turned into fins. He is not a carnivorous
animal which has one-sidedly developed its eye-
teeth and incisors. He is not an animal with
hoofs which has laid special stress upon its molar

I teeth. He is not a rodent, the best trumps of
which are the incisors ; he is not a sloth, the teeth

j of which have entirely degenerated, nor is he a
bat, the hands of which are made into wings.
There is only one single group of mammals, the
teeth and hands of which resemble those of man,

Kand that group is composed of monkeys. X

Mark well: when Linnaeus placed man side
by side with the monkeys in his system, he was
not thinking of anything else but just an orderly
arrangement, a systematic grouping of animals
at a greater or smaller distance, just as a boy
will stick his beetles into his collection, some
closer, others farther apart. But since the days
of Linnaeus a good many deep thinkers and clear

39

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

heads have asked the question whether this "sys-
tem" might not have a deeper meaning and re-
lation to nature?

Now, when we remember that ye arrived at a
certain station in our research which we named
monkey-man, the probability of a deeper mean-
ing of that system grows apace. We were look-
ing for some primitive disguise by which man
might have concealed his identity far back in the
days of the primitive world, and we must cer-
tainly say, when we think of this system, that
of all the creatures of this globe, none is better
fitted for such a disguise than is the monkey, that
is to say, that animal which in spite of all the
differences of its bony structure is still far more
like us than all the other living beings of the
earth together.

Remember also that we were not speaking
of monkeys in a general way; but indicated a
certain species, the gibbon. Systematic zoology
very early accomplished the separation of some
species of monkeys from others, the so-called
anthropoid apes. This word indicates that these
apes are still closer to man in the system than
any others. No other group in the system is so
close to us. We now distinguish four species of
these anth^grpoid apes. Two of them are living
in Africa, tjjie gorilla and the i chimpanzee, and

40

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

two in Asia, the orang-outangand the gibbon,
These four apes strangely resemble human be-
ings, even externally. The layman is specially
astonished to notice that they, like man, have
not jin externally visible JaU. But scientists
know that this occurs occasionally even among
lower monkeys and so it is not considered a very
convincing mark. But there is a very wonderful
relation which should convince the most inveter-
ate skeptic, and that is the following.

Whoever has looked at a drop of blood
through a very strong microscope knows that
this; jpeculiar fluid is a mixture of two things,
first, the so-called serum, and then the blood
corpuscles floating round in it. Now when we
compare the drops of blood of various animal
species, we find that the red blood corpuscles
have many different forms. Some of them are
long, some are round, some are large and some
small ; in brief they are different in fish, or newt,
or bird, or mammal. This is no ground for sur-
prise, for all these animals are very different
in many other ways.

The peculiar significance of this difference is
that the attempt to inoculate an animal of one
group with the living blood of another group
always ends fatally. It is just as if these two
kinds of blood carried on a war with one an-

41

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

other. The serum of one group destroys the
blood corpuscles of another group. If an animal
is inoculated with the blood of another group,
it quickly feels the fatal effects of this struggle
in its veins. It falls into convulsions and finally
collapses entirely, just as a conflagration con-
sumes a city in whose streets a violent civil war
is raging. And this happens often in the case
of animals which are relatively close to one
another, for instance, many mammals. The
blood of a cat kills a rabbit which is inoculated
with it, and vice versa. But finally there is a cer-
tain limit. The blood of a cat naturally does not
kill another cat. Indeed, peace is guaranteed
often among more distant relatives. Closely re-
lated animals may mix their blood without dan-
ger. A dog is so close to a wolf that the living
blood of the one may mix with that of the other
without harm. It is the same with a horse and
a donkey. Now a short time ago a certain scien-
tist, Friedenthal in Berlin, mixed human blood
and monkey blood. At first one blood acted as
a poison for the other; that is to say, as long
as the objects of the experiment were man and
a lower monkey. But when human blood came
o the blood of the chimpanzee, peace was sud-
denly established. The boundary of antagonisms
had been crossed. The blood of man and that of
42

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

the anthropoid ape were so nearly akin that they
agreed without difficultly. How could this be?
Here it was not a question of comparing bone
with bone. An answer came directly from the
living. The secret of life, the most minute
chemistry of the blood, testified to the most intir
mate relationship, a consanguinity in the most
Xdaring sense of the word. -*

With this fact we have made another step
ahead. The probability grows that man may
have been concealed once upon a time in one of
these creatures which we see represented by the
anthropoid apes of to-day. Indeed ,the experi-
ment with blood makes it almost evident that
all four anthropoid apes now living are directly
connected with this mysterious primeval fact.
The question is only, what is this relation?

We first of all feel tempted to ask whether
these anthropoid apes themselves might not rep-
resent that primitive stage for which we are
looking. Are not these apes veritable primitive
men that have not yet been transformed into
genuine men to this day?

One thinks involuntarily of the ludicrous tales
of the negroes who say that the gorilla and
the chimpanzee are really men, only they are too
lazy to work, and for this reason pretend that

43

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

they are monkeys. And perhaps there is suffi-
cient truth in this theory to justify the belief
that these apes actually represent a type of primi-
tive man who was arrested in his development
against his will, and who went so far in his
conservatism that he still illustrates the "mon-
key stage" of man.

Again one might ask at this point, how it is
that a few of our crude and monkey-like great-
grandfathers are still living in the form of iso-
lated men of the woods, as a fixed primitive
type, at a time when present-day genuine man
has long arrived at his perfect form. But we
meet with the same phenomenon within genuine
humanity itself. Why does the native Australian
with his Stone Age civilization still live in the
bush, while over here civilized man has already
risen to the full height of his evolution? And
we have an illustration still closer at hand. In
the plains where the modern metropolis steams
and roars, progress walks with seven-leagued
boots, while yonder in the remote mountain vil-
lage ancient customs and institutions are still in
full bloom. So, this would not be a very perti-
nent objection.

However, let us take a closer look at the anth-
ronoui «H^es. We have four species." These four

44

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

species differ considerably from one another,
some of them show even extreme differences.
Do they possibly represent four different primi-
tive stages of man? But every attempt to re-
construct them from a continuously ascending
line towards man is a complete failure. It is
true that each species has a number of its own
peculiar resemblances to man. But, it rather
seems that these resemblances are distributed
among them in a rather indiscriminate way, so
that they all supplement one another in a funda-
mental outline of man, but nevertheless do not
form an ascending chain of evidence.

We now remember that strange creature of
Trinil, and our attention turns especially to the
gibbon. Is it possible that he could be a genuine
archetype, and that the orang-outang, the
chimpanzee and the gorilla could be merely un-
progressive branches? One thing cannot be de-
nied: this gibbon possesses indeed very strange
and portentous characteristics. It seems that
this ape actually brings us closer to the secret of
our descent. He is not a bestial gorilla, but a
much more gentle and soulful creature. ^Te can.
singthe^ music of the gc^le. — a very strange case
in a mammal, which involuntarily reminds us
that it is precisely in man that language and song

45

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

A GIBBON.

The anthropoid apes of the gibbon group are living in southern
Asia and in the Sunda Islands. They have extremely long
arms, which are much longer than their legs. The gibbon has
very significant relations with the human line of descent.

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

have developed. Furthermore, if the gibbon
descends from a tree to the ground which, by
the way, he does not like to do, he walks habitu-
ally on two legs and balances himself at the
same time by stretching out his arms sideways,
or folding them above his head, and these arms
of the present-day gibbon are again a new clue
in our research. Compared to the trunk and the
legs these arms are excessively long. Any com-
parison with man seems impossible in view of
these arms. No other mammal has arms of such
length. However, if we study the habits of gib-
bon life, we easily recognize their purpose. The
gibbon is the cleverest climber among the anthro-
poid apes. He is an unexcelled acrobat, thanks
to these arms. They represent an extreme but
very adequate adaptation to his special needs.
But when it comes to comparing him with mod-
ern man, these arms of the gibbon certainly
point away from us. The question arises
whether the primitive man for whom we are
looking could ever have had such spiderlike arms.
The gorilla, chimpanzee and ourang-outang also
have pretty long arms, but they are not nearly
so long, and in that respect these apes seem to
be much closer to man. Even a majority of the
lower apes, such as Macacus, and even the ba-

47

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

boons, have a much closer resemblance to man
in this one point.

There seems to be only one way out of these
strange contradictions. We must conclude that
the living anthropoid apes are closely related to
the archetype of man for which we are looking,
but they do not represent its thorough-bred type.
f Each one of them has developed along his own
I line from this thorough-bred type simultaneously
^with man as we know him to-day. They did not
change very much, but still they went far enough
to acquire each his own peculiarities. All of
them retain strong resemblances to the archetype,
but one has preserved more of some characteris-
tics and lost others, while the reverse is true of
another species. Very likely the gibbon still re-
sembles that archetype most closely, but even he
has later acquired those enormous arms.

It is highly interesting to know that we may
mention a direct reason for our general assump-
tion of probability, so that it becomes almost a
certainty. Among living beings there is a very
curious law, or at least a near approach to one.
Young animals very frequently resemble the
ancestors of their whole race more nearly than
the adult animals. A frog in the tadpole stage
still resembles a fish which breathes in the water

48

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

through gills. A great number of higher animals
assume again in the egg, or in the mother's
womb, certain forms which we meet on a much
lower and more ancient plane. A bird in the egg
shows for a while a great mass of vertebrae, in
its tail which once characterized the extinct bird-
lizard ( Archaopteryx) , a transition form be-
tween lizard and bird, existing millions of years
ago. * Haeckel has called this peculiar fact, which x
recurs in innumerable cases and truly indicates
a general and lawful connection, the "biogenetic
principle," and this term has become fairly popu-^
lar to-day. x

Well, then, the very first observers noticed
that the gorilla, the chimpanzee, the orang-
outang, resemble man more in proportion as
they are younger. The giant gorilla, which is
the most ferocious and bestial of all anthropoid
apes in old age, resembles in its baby stage the
human being so closely that even the layman
who has never thought about these things is
surprised. In view of the biogenetic law, this
would indicate that these anthropoid apes are
descended from an ancestor who was still more
manlike than they are to-day. And the point is
finally clinched by some facts which the scientist,
Emil Selenka, has recently discovered in regard

49

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

to the gibbon. An unborn gibbon in its mother's
womb at first has well proportioned arms just
as if it were to become a human being. And it
is only by gradual stages that the arms of the
little ape develop into those enormous acrobatic
limbs. If the biogenetic law is correct, then we
would have in this case an exact proof that the
ancestors of the present-day gibbon did not pos-
sess those long arms and were, therefore, con-
siderably more manlike.

EMBRYOS OF A GIBBON,

in an advanced state of development. Mark the likeness to a
human embryo.

(After Selenka.)

Thousands of indications -thus point to the
fact which occurred even to Darwin when he dis-
cussed these things tentatively for the first time,

so

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

some thirty years ago. XA species of mammal X
has once existed on this globe which contained
the germs, not alone of man, but also of the
gorilla, the chimpanzee, the orang-outang and
the gibbon. All of them have later developed
/from that type — unlike sons^of the same father. X
No doubt this creature was, in some respects, a
closer copy of the present anthropoid apes than
of modern man, and it must have been closest
to the gibbon of to-day. However, it was dis-
tinguished from this gibbon, as we know him in
his adult form by certain more manlike marks.
And if we were to call that primitive being
"man," because genuine man is descended from
him and because he has such strong resemblances
to human beings, then we might say of the pres-
ent-day anthropoid apes that they are descended
from man, instead of man being descended 'from
the orang-outang, or the gorilla, as some lay-
men frequently claim. That would be a much
more correct statement, and would conform to
the idea of Darwin, who gave rise to these dis-
cussions.

That primitive type is no longer living on this
globe. Unless an unexpected discovery is made .
in the partly unexplored forest regions of the in-
terior of Africa, we may close the books in this

51

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

matter. At this point then, our steps must be
directed exclusively towards the primitive world.
But, what can be said in regard to those primi-
tive bones and the possibility of fitting them into
the picture which we have just drawn?

Here we remember once more that famous
Pithecanthropus of Trinil, who is half gibbon,
half man. Is it possible that he could be the very
type for which we are looking? There is one
thing which gives rise to doubts, and that is the
time to which he belongs. We have seen that it
is almost a certainty that genuine man lived in
the second third of the Tertiary period, that is to
say, in those tropical forests of middle Europe.
Recently, flintstone tools have been found in
France in the strata of that period, which the
scientist called the "Miocene Period." These
tools are almost identical with certain stone tools
of the crudest kind which every expert attributes
to human hands. But the great forests of this
Miocene period were inhabited by man-like apes.
In Austria, Switzerland and France, there lived
a genuine gibbon (Pliopithecus) and another
species lived in France, closely resembling the
chimpanzee, but yet standing by itself without
being any closer to man (Dryopithecus) . A
little later we also find genuine chimpanzees and

53

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

orang-outangs. So much we can tell by well
preserved bones. It is evident that the unlike
sons of that mysterious archetype had already
branched of! at that period, and the types had
become so plain that they could be separated into
anthropoid apes and men.

It seems, however, that the bones of Pithe-
canthropus, which we know belonged to the ex-
treme end of the Tertiary period, are apparently
many thousand years younger than those bones
of the Miocene period. If that creature of Trinil
still contained in the germ a common thorough-
bred type, then it follows that this type must
have lived simultaneously with its unlike sons
on the island of Java, even after the lapse of so
many thousand years.

Of course, such a thing would not be impossi-
ble. Only we might ask whether that thorough-
bred type could have been preserved in its orig-
inal form during this entire period. We might
be inclined to suspect at least some of the least
typical characteristics and assume that this type
might have developed a little further and adapted
itself to the new conditions, while nevertheless
it might still give us a far better idea of the ac-
tual course of development than the present
anthropoid apes.

53

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

It is also logical to ask whether Pithecan-
thropus was not a long surviving "last Mohican"
of a transition form from a genuine thorough-
bred type to the genuine man. It all depends
upon the weight which we lay upon the specific-
ally genuine human marks. If any one is more
attracted by the resemblance of that form to the
present gibbon, he might argue that Pithecan-
thropus was a transition form from the arche-
type of past genuine man to the genuine gibbon.
This last theory might be seriously considered
from the moment that we could get a glimpse of
the arms of that archetype, which we do not
know as yet, provided they were to show a
tendency toward the grotesque elongation of the
genuine gibbon arm. Let us hope that the exca-
vations in Java will be diligently pursued and
that we may then be able to solve some of these
more intricate problems.

So much at least is certain, that the genuine
common ancestor in question, who must have
had at least a very close resemblance to Pithe-
canthropus in the structure of his skull and legs,
existed before the Miocene period, that is to say,
in the first third of the Tertiary period. He rep*3

(resented the "Man" of that time — a creature!

I which contained the possibilities of developmentj

54

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

-^

into genuine man and also those of development 1

into a gibbon, chimpanzee, gorilla and orang-j
outang. Doubtless the greater part of his body
was covered with strong hair, such as the present
anthropoid apes have inherited from him. He
is a real, genuine, living "Esau." The fact that
the smooth "Jacob," man of to-day, has only a
very slight indication of this hairy covering on
most parts of his body, is not a proof to the con-
trary. For we find the instructive law on the
resemblances of the youthful forms to their an-
cestors gives us a very satisfactory clue to our
original ancestor: the body of the human being
in the mother's womb is also, in its first stages,
covered with thick woolly hair. Even the face
is covered just as we see it to-day in the case of
the adult gibbon, and only the inner surfaces of
the hands and feet are left free. Evidently these
free places were uncovered, even in the ancestor
which this human embryo copies for a short time.
This Esau-like covering of the human being does
not disappear until immediately before birth, and
in a few exceptional cases, this covering has even
been retained during life. This is the origin of
the renowned men with dog faces.

Now we come to a new question. What is the
ancestor of that archetype? In what other dis-

55

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

guise can we trace him further back? In the
system, the four anthropoid apes are followed by
the rest of the monkeys. This class again con-
sists of at least three great groups which differ
from one another. Some of them are the long-
tailed monkeys of Asia and Africa, such as
Macacus, baboons, etc., which make up the ma-
jority of the popular monkeys in our zoological
gardens. The second group lives exclusively in
America, and the bright Capuchin monkey may
be mentioned as a type. The third, also re-
stricted to America, comprises a small number
of little monkeys, having claws instead of nails
on most of their fingers and toes and resembling
much more a squirrel than a genuine monkey.
The marmoset is one of them. These three
groups can no more be used in the construction
of a consecutive line of development than the
four anthropoid apes. But a purely anatomical
comparison leaves the impression that somewhere
near them the next lower stage of man must be
found.

Even the very first experts who described the
gibbon noticed that this same gibbon, aside from
his strong resemblances to the other anthropoid
apes and to man himself, also had certain other
resemblances very plainly developed, and these

56

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

pointed towards the Macacus-like long-tailed
monkeys. These characters could be inherited
only from the archetype, and this_Jyge_aga_iri
could only have inherited them from some still
older type, which had a general and much great-
er resemblance to the majority of the other mon-
keys. That there was once upon a time a cer-
tain ancestor who had an externally visible long
tail is still evidenced by man himself. Not only
is man in the tailed stage to this day, though the
tail vertebrae are no longer externally visible,
but these are certainly still better developed in
man than in the anthropoid apes. Furthermore,
the human embryo in the mother's womb once
more reveals the persistency of that mysterious
biogenetic law. It has a plainly, visible external
tail. In exceptional cases this "embryo tail" is
also preserved in adults, and in some cases we
have those abnormal "tail men," whose existence
has often been doubted, but who nevertheless
exist. There is no reason why we should not as-
sume that certain Macacus-like types, preceding
the human type, carried a genuine tail for a con-
stant characteristic. So far as we can judge
from fossil remains of bones, genuine long-tailed
monkeys, similar to those in present Asia, were
already in existence in the middle of the Tertiary

57

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

period; in which both man and anthropoid apes
were found. One species, Mesopithecus, lived
in great numbers in Greece, where many bones
of them have been found. This Grecian monkey
had a very long tail. At the same time the form
of its nose and the position of its eyes gave it a
greater resemblance to the human being than any
of the present long-tailed monkeys have. • On
the other hand, the light hearted crowd of long-
tailed monkeys has developed many characteris-
tics which tend toward a direction leading away
from man. There are, so to say, one-sidedly
bestialized forms, an extreme exaggeration of
which is the baboon family, for instance, the
grotesque mandril. The conclusion is inevita-
ble that once again, at this point, a line of descent
originally close to man has gradually deviated
into a bypath and produced many varieties of
monkeys now living in Asia and Africa. There^
fore we should once more have to assume the
existence of an archetype out of which de-j
veloped, on the one hand, the original ancestor
of man and of the anthropoid apes, and, on the
other, that Grecian Mesopithecus and the many
side lines of African and Asian long-tailed mon^
keys. Of course, this archetype would have to
be still a great deal more ancient than the pre-
58

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

ceding one. It might have existed as early as
the first third of the Tertiary period. By its ex-
ternal characteristics, we should certainly have
classed it among the genuine monkeys, and only
a few slight anatomical marks would have be-
trayed to the expert that he was not dealing with
a monkey of later descent, but with one in which,
so to say, the third generation of coming man
was still concealed.

Now, it is peculiar that we have actually found
remains of monkey-like animals in the first third
of the Tertiary period. They were discovered
by the Spanish explorer Ameghino in Patagonia,
the extreme end of South America, and were
concealed in a layer of rock which must have
been developed toward the end of that first third
of the Tertiary period. We call this first third
the "Eocene" period, or in English the dawn of
the more recent period. When Ameghino first
analyzed one of these Patagonian monkey skulls,
it conjured up to his imagination the ghost of a
very small man, so that he called it "Homun-
culus," but it seems that after all this resem-
blance to man is not much greater than that of
the American monkeys of the Capuchin type,
and that group of Eocene monkeys evidently be-
longed to that class. It cannot be denied that the

59

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

present Capuchin monkey is in many respects,
physically and mentally, man-like. It also has
secret relations with the gibbon, and thus to the
archetype of the Pithecanthropus kind. Thus,
many things favor the more recent assumption
that possibly these bright, gentle and highly in-
telligent American Capuchin monkeys are the
closest of any of the present monkey forms to
that genuine monkey type of man which belongs
to the Eocene period.

On the other hand, the small and squirrel-like
marmosets must be eliminated from our line of
descent and regarded as a side line. Most likely
they are a one-sided adaptation to special con-
ditions in South America.

But now that we have gotten so far, there can
be no doubt as to the next question. If man can
be traced so far back in monkeydom, he cannot
but share all the vicissitudes of monkey life fur-
ther back. Whatever may be the general descent;
tof monkeys, that is at the same time the line of!
jman's development. The prototype of monkeys!
|is also that of man.

The conventional system of mammals proceeds
along a great downward scale. First we have
the prosimiae, bats, insectivora! such as the
hedge-hog, then ^rnivorjj ro^^itsf the large and

60

THREE SKULLS FOR COMPARISON.

The skull at the top is thai of a young Gorilla, the one in
the middle that of an old Gorilla, the one at the bottom that of
a Man. Note how much more man-like the skull of the young
gorilla is than that of the old one.

61

THREE SKULLS OF DIFFERENT MAMMALS.

At the top is the skull of a carnivore, a Cat; in the middle
that of a rodent, a Hare; and at the bottom that of an utura-
fete/a How.

62

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

variegated group of ruminants/ etc. But this
scale is only apparently a historical one. Who-
ever were to imagine that man went through all
these different stages in succession would not
come to any definite result. For instance, if we
compare the teeth of a rabbit with those of a
monkey, we should have considerable difficulty
in accepting the idea that the monkey could be
descended from a rabbit.

It is the same when we compare two styles of
architecture. The one is simple and noble and
the other a sort of bizarre caricature of the
former. We do not take kindly to the idea that
the simple style should have developed from the
caricature. Just so, the rows of teeth of mon-
keys, including those of man, give the impression
of a simple temple of noble style, in which every-
thing is developed in conformity with a definite
and uniform system. But the teeth of a rabbit,
of a horse, and even those of a cat, appear to us
like a caricatured variation of that simple style,
going to excess here, falling short there.

Of course, the opposite idea that all these other
groups of mammals should have developed from
monkeys is equally improbable. The simplest
historical premises oppose such an idea. Neither
do the remains of bones of primitive animals

63

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

teach us that there were at a certain period, first,
let us say, ruminants, later on, perhaps rodents,
then carnivora, and finally monkeys. Nor do
they show that there were at first no other higher
mammals than monkeys, and then in successive
periods ruminants, rodents, etc. We rather re-
ceive the impression that all of these groups ap-
peared simultaneously at a certain period.

Now it is precisely the progress in our knowl-
edge of extinct mammals which succeeded finally
in leading us out of this labyrinth of contradic-
tory assumptions.

All those groups of mammals still appeared in
the first third of the Tertiary period, the so-
called Eocene period, to which we have re-
peatedly referred. Monkeys, as we have seen,
were among them. Hence, if we desire to learn
more about the origin of these things, we must
trace our steps further back, say to the beginning
of this Eocene period.

Now we have found in two places far distant
from one another — in France near Cernays in the
vicinity of Reims, and in North America in New
Mexico — the bones of certain_^xtremely ojd,
mammalsj)eloriging to just this period, and these
bpnes^ explain the mystery very fully. On the
one hand, all of these bones' have a very simple

64

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

and fundamental structure. They show a re-
markable row of teeth without extremes, or cari-
catured exaggerations, and the present monkey
and human teeth are easily derived from them.
Furthermore, these skeletons have four feet, or
rather four hands, with five regular fingers,
among them one very flexible thumb. This is
another very good prototype of the monkey and
human hand, which is so widely different from
the claw of the lion, or from the shin and hoof
of the horse. In place of nails, these five fingers
had an indefinite sort of thing, half way between
a claw and a hoof, which might easily have de-
veloped into anything, say, a horse's hoof, a
carnivore's claw, or the nail of a Simian, or a
human hand.

On the other side, these animals show the be-
ginnings of certain divergences in the structure
of their bones. Some of them have more of the
rodent, others more of the carnivore, others of
some dominating ruminant character. There is
no doubt that these simultaneously represented a
very ancient group of ancestors which was just
then beginning to branch out into the various
great side lines of mammals. And it is equally
certain that one of these side lines was composed
of monkeys. Of course this original side line

65

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

of monkeys must have resembled the original an-
cestor in the structure of teeth and hands and
must have been a straight continuation of its
evolution in the best sense of the word. This ex-
plains why man and monkey, who to this day
possess the simple normal teeth and the primi-
tive hand, give the impression, now that the an-
cient group of ancestors has long become extinct,
that carnivore, ruminants, etc., are nothing but
very extreme caricatures of the archetype.

Furthermore, the claim that the monkeys were
really a side line of that very primitive ancestor,
and the most direct side line at that, is substan-
tiated by a study of those ancient bones of Cer-
nays and New Mexico. Just as we still observe
in those bones certain variations in the direction
of carnivora, of rodents, of ruminants, so we
also find a little group of animals which gradu-
ally, but very decidedly, move in the direction of
our monkeys.

True, they are not yet genuine monkeys, but
they certainly show an unmistakable resemblance
to a certain group of mammals which have al-
ways followed in the system directly after the
monkeys, and which were often considered as
some peculiar retinue of genuine monkeys, the
so-called prosimiae. '

66

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

TARSIUS SPECTRUM.

This little lemur almost resembles a tree-toad and is related
to the family-tree of man.

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

To this day there is living in the Sunda Islands,
that is to say, in the same locality where the
gibbon and the orang are living, and where once
upon a time Pithecanthropus struggled through
his existence, a queer little creature, partly re-
sembling a small monkey, partly a leap-mouse,
with long stilted legs. This little creature is so
funny in all its aspects that it has been called the
"tree toad" among mammals. The official name
of this little forest gnome is Tarsius spectrum.
This Tarsius is counted among the prosimiae in
the system. Quite a number of animals about
the size of a cat belong to this group, some of
them coming from Madagascar, and known as
"Makis." Furthermore, there are the so-called
Galagos and the very strange Finger-monkey.
At a certain period there existed in Madagascar
even some species of prosimiae, which were
nearly as large as a man.

Now this little Tarsius has a certain character
which connects him very closely with the genuine
monkeys, first of all with the American Capuchin
monkey. Those who have been present at the
birth of a human being will remember a certain
bloody mass which is forthcoming after the birth
of the child. This is the so-called placenta/ So
long as the little human being rests in its mother's

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

womb as an embryo, this placenta is its most
important organ, because by its help, the nourish-
ing juices from the blood of the mother pass into
the body of the child and thus feed it. The
various groups of mammals differ considerably in
the method of forming this placenta in the
mother's womb. Man and the anthropoid apes
have their own peculiar method. This is another
excellent proof of the close relationship between
man and these apes, and it was a great acquire-
ment for this science when Selenka demonstrated
that these processes followed the same outline in
the gibbon and the orang-outang as in man — a
process which is otherwise found nowhere but in
man. The Macacus-like, long-tailed monkeys
follow a different method, and the American
monkeys have another and more primitive one.
Now, it is interesting to know that the prosimia
Tarsius follows the model of the American mon-
keys in forming this placenta, while the majority
of the genuine prosimiae again go their own
peculiar way. And since we have found in
America very old bones of the species Tarsius,
the probability grows that prosimiae of tfie
Tarsius type may be the direct ancestors of the
American monkeys. If so, it is at the same time
the next station in the evolution of man. This

69

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

type of Tarsitis of the Tertiary period would
certainly represent a further development of our
old friends of Cernays and New Mexico, which
show certain divergences from the original type
in the direction of the prosimia. The scientific!
name of these prosimiae is Lemuridae, and these
very ancient ancestors indicating this direction !
have therefore been called "Pachylemuridae."

Let us remark in passing that there is still a
very little group of mammals, the so-called in-
sectivora, such as the hedge-hog, moles, etc.,
that likewise have a placenta similar to that of
Tarsius. It is among the hedge-hogs that this
placenta is distinctly visible. The student can
hardly fail to suppose that the hedge-hogs are
likewise in some way closely related to the side
line which branches off from the archetype in
the direction of monkeys. However, this ques-
tion is not yet settled. At any rate, the hedge-
hogs give the impression of being members of
a very ancient group, and they, more than any
other living mammals of the present day, seem to
have preserved most nearly, even in their ex-
ternal structure, the actual form of that primeval
group of Cernays and New Mexico.

But, if we try to solve the question of the
ancestors of that original group itself, we are

70

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

brought face to face with another historical
fact.

We have now arrived at the beginning of the
Tertiary period. One step further back and we
find ourselves in the age of the great saurians.
The geological picture has now completely
changed. We enter the Secondary period of the
earth's history, that inconceivably long epoch in
which the chalk cliffs of the Island of Rugen, the
Jurassic' slate of Suabia, and the reddish sand-
stone used in building the Strasburg Munster
were formed. The greater part of the large fossil
bones belonging to these days were the remains
of giant reptiles, some of them resembling
dragons. Those saurians swam around in the
ocean like our present day whales, or they rolled
around in the mud like our hippopotami. Some
of them, resembling colossal kangaroos, grazed
on the prairies like cows, lumbered about on their
heavy hind legs, or jumped after their prey, and
some of the most daring even rocked themselves
on batlike wings high up in the air. It was not
until gradually in the course of this geological
period, which probably lasted many millions of
years, that birds appeared for the first time — first
of all, the lizard-bird Archaeopteryx. This transi-
tion form shows very plainly in its structure that

71

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

birds are merely a side line of the great main
branch of reptiles.

Nevertheless, during this typical saurian age,
there already existed some mammals, as is proved
by the remains of their bones. True, they do
not seem to have played a very prominent role.
Their remains have been found, therefore, only
in a few portions of the secondary strata. And
all these scant remains belong to rather small
animals, but such as they are they are well pre-
served and teach us an important lesson.

In our transition from the Tertiary period
backward into more primitive times, we become
aware of the fact that all higher mammals gradu-
ally disappear, even that archetype of Cernays
and New Mexico. Instead of them, the remains
of mammal bones, wherever they may appear, be-
long to representatives of a certain group of
lower mammals, the so-called marsupials. /•

The best known type of marsupial is the kan-
garoo. But there are still a number of other rep-
resentatives living, most of them in Australia,
some of them also in America. These marsupial?
have, among other peculiarities, a bony projec-
tion in their lower jaw, and this always distin-
guishes their jaw from that of any other
mammal. The fossil lower jaws of these second-

73

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

ary mammals always have this very characteristic
projection. They evidently belonged to a group
of mammals whose last living representatives are
the present-day marsupials. These bones are
also found in Africa, Asia and Europe, proving
that this race of marsupials formerly inhabited
the entire earth.

Under these conditions the assumption was
justified that this primitive group of mammals
represented the most ancient type, from which
the tertiary archetype of the higher side lines
might have developed. In that case, they once
more show us another mile stone in the upward
march of disguised man — a marsupial man as a
contemporary of the Ichthyosaurian. This gen-
eral conclusion is confirmed by a good many de-
tails.

Marsupials owe their name to a fact, which
every child notices in the kangaroos of our zoo-
logical gardens, that is to say, the female carries
its young, which is born in an immature state,
for a while in a protecting fold of its skin, the
so-called pocket. In this pocket the young finds
the milk-nipples which it uses in suckling as
mammals do. To this day, the embryo of the
highest mammals, including that of man, bears
in the position and surroundings of its milk-

73

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

nipples certain indications which perceptibly
point toward their original location in a pocket,
a sure sign that the ancestors of all of them once
went through the marsupial stage. A very good
proof is furnished' by the present living mar-
supials in their peculiar formation of that im-
portant organ of propagation in the mother's
womb, which we mentioned once before, the
placenta. While in our previous remarks we
mentioned only the different forms of this
placenta, we now notice that the marsupials
seem to have remained stationary at the point
where the placenta was in its first stage of de-
velopment.

The majority of the marsupials have no
placenta at all, and this is an indication of a
former and still more ancient condition which is
closely connected with the existence of a pocket
and the premature birth of the young. The
young was born so early and required the use
of the milk-nipples so prematurely that it did not
at all need a placenta connected with the nourish-
ing juices of its mother's blood. On the other
hand, a few species of Australian marsupials, the
Perameles, show the beginning of a very simple
and rudimentary placenta, and thus furnish an
additional proof that this important organ went

74

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

through its first stages in the ranks of the mar-
supials. In other words, the marsupials repre^\
pent the genuine ancient transition form from aj
Uower to a higher mammal. We shall have to

A SPECIES OF PERAMELES,

a type of lower marsupials, which, however, forms a sort of
placenta and thus approaches the higher mammals.

assume that the progress from these marsupials
with primitive placentas toward that archetype
of Cernays and New Mexico took place during
the chalk period, that is to say, the last great

75

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

division of the Secondary age. It is important/,
*to note at the same time that a hand with five
fingers and a flexible thumb, which have been so
faithfully preserved by prosimiae, monkeys, an-
thropoid apes and man, are found among the
climbing species of marsupials, especially theX
/American oppossum.

Before the external nipples of the breast are
formed in the human embryo, the milk gland is
formed in the skin. If we remember the bio-
genetic law, it seems to us that the milk gland
existed in our ancestors at a certain stage be-
fore the genuine nipple of the breasts came into
existence. At the same time we see the human
embryo at a certain early stage of its development
with a very peculiar construction of its posterior
opening. The opening for the products of the
urinary and sexual organs is found in the rectum,
so that there is only one single opening for all
three things, the products of the digestive, the
urinary, and the sex organs. It is not until the
third month that a partition is formed in the
rectum of the growing human being by means
of which henceforth these excretions are divided
and discharged through two openings, one for the
products of the urinary and sex organs, the other
for the products of digestion. This succession of

76

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

organs compels us to consider whether we have
not to deal in this case with a very old inter-rela-
tion of things. Could it be possible that mammals
concealing man existed once upon a time which
possessed milk glands, but no external nipples,
and which had only one single opening for the
products of the urinary, sex and digestive organs ?

There are such mammals even in our day.
They are known as Australian duckbills. One
species of them, living on dry land, called
Echidna, resembles a large hedge-hog and is
protected by strong quills. It lives in Australia,
Tasmania and New Guinea. Another kind, liv-
ing in the water and called Ornithorhynchus,
resembles in its pelt and habits the otter. It
swims very well and lives in the little rivers and
lakes of the Australian continent. Both duck-
bills are without external nipples, but they have
genuine milk glands. The milk percolates through
a sieve-like place in the skin into the mouth of
the young. At the same time the body of the
duckbill has only one single opening for the
products of the urinary, sex and digestive or-
gans.

Injhe_ system these duckbills follow after the
marsupials. Neither of them has any placenta.
Nor do they need it, and that fpr a very good

77

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

ECHIDNA HYSTRIX,

the land duck-bill, an archetype of mammal living in Australia,
which lays eggs like reptiles and birds, but suckles its young
after they have hatched. Its egg, natural size, is shown to th«
right.

reason. They actually lay eggs in the regular
way. The young is born in an egg with a parch-
ment-like wall, just like a young turtle or lizard.
But while it is hatched from this egg like a
young bird, it licks up the milk of its mother
mammal fashion. The terrestrial duckbill has
furthermore the method of marsupials ; it carries
first its egg and then its young in its pocket.
The aquatic duckbill, on the other hand, does
not use this method any more; it digs a hole in
the bank of a river, makes a regular nest and
there lays its eggs openly, just like a bird.
The inevitable conclusion from these premises

78

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

ORNITHORHYNCHUS PARADOXUS,

the -water duck-bill, a mammal of Australia which lays eggs and
is closely related to the primeval ancestors of present-day
mammals.

is that these duckbills show us the more ancient
group of ancestors below the marsupials. In
other words, Australia has preserved for us a few
"last Mohicans," witnesses to a certain stage in
the development of mammals and of man in the
far off days of the primitive world. And all that
would now be required to complete the proof
would be genuine historical testimony given by
primitive fossil duckbill bones, such as furnished
the required proof in the case of the marsupials.
For a while it seemed as if this group would not
be forthcoming. It is true that various little
teeth and remains of small mammal bones, not
belonging to any class represented by living
mammals, not even the marsupials, were found
in the strata of the age of the great saurians far

79

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

into this first third of the so-called Trias period.
Most of the discoveries consisted of teeth, but
neither of the two duckbills now living has any
teeth. They are called duckbills because their
toothless jaws are covered with a horny skin
giving them the shape of bird's bills. The
aquatic species especially has a genuine duck
bill.

However, one fine day the biogenetic law once
more came to our rescue. A young duckbill de-
velops in its first stages a sort of milk teeth, hav-
ing the early characteristics of molar teeth. No
teeth of any other living or extinct animal cor-
respond to the form of these teeth of the young
duckbill — with the sole exception of those fossil
teeth of the saurian age. Hence we conclude
that the toothless bills of the duckbills, in spite
of the fact that they look so queer in a mammal,
do not represent an ancient heritage. They are
rather a newly acquired character, an adapta-
tion, which these surviving Australians have ac-
quired during the long period that has elapsed
since then. Their ancestors in the saurian age,
who were at the same time the genuine ancestors
of the higher mammals, had teeth, and these are
the very teeth which we now find in a fossil state.
These ancient duckbills with teeth, as one might

80

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

call them, if this term were not self -contradictory,
are known by the scientific name of AUotheria.
When duckbills first became known, their bills
were, of course, the first thing that gave rise to
comment. Owing to their presence these mam-
mals, which otherwise had all the marks of a
mammal, gave a decided impression of a cross
with birds. For this reason some people specu-
lated from the beginning whether these queer
creatures did not actually represent the transition
of a mammal to a bird. In the light of the ex-
planation given just now, we are not very much
impressed with this speculation, for the bill ap-
pears as something unessential and subsequently
acquired, which has about the same significance
as the whalebone in the jaws of the whale, or the
exaggerated claws of the sloth. But the otherx
/.characteristics of these duckbills concern us much
more. There is above all t

which had not been ascertained by the first ob-
servers. This habit indeed indicates the descent
of mammals from a lower class of vertebrates.
But this lower class need not necessarily be birds,
for reptiles, amphibians and fish also lay eggs.
Indeed, the egg of a duckbill resembles much
more that of a reptile, such as a lizard, or a
turtle, than that of a bird. And if we consider

81

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

the structure of the skeleton, the resemblance to
reptiles exceeds that to birds. The duckbill, the
contemporary of saurians, seems to lead directly
to the saurians, without touching the birds.

The straight succession of our system misleads
us in this instance. Birds represent a subsequent
and one-sided branch line of reptiles, and have
evidently nothing at all to do with the develop-
ment of mammals. It is true that the birds have
also permanently warm blood like mammals, and
owing to this similarity they have been placed
side by side in the system. A bird has often
warmer blood than a mammal. But this again
is one of those qualities which, though indicating
a higher stage, were nevertheless acquired inde-
pendently in widely different periods. In this
connection we might point to the fact that the
representatives of other dissimilar groups of
animals have acquired the faculty of flying inde-
pendently and at far distant stages. This is the
case, for instance, with flies, bees, dragon-flies,
butterflies, flying-fish, frogs, such as the flying
frog of the Sunda Islands which flies by means of
a skin between its separate toes, and lizards, such
as the Australian flying lizard. There are, fur-
thermore, the birds, and among mammals, the
bats and the flying squirrels. There can be no

82

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

question whatever of any comparison between
the one or the other of these groups in the matter
of the flying apparatus. Each one of them, un-
der pressure of conditions, has separately ac-
quired this adaptation. A number of the old and
extinct saurians, such as the Dinosaurians, the
Pterodaktyls, or flying dragons, must have been
in possession of permanently warm blood, so far
as we are able to ascertain. A few snakes, such
as the python, develop to this day warm blood,
under certain conditions, for instance, when
they have laid eggs and wish to give them a cer-
tain amount of heat in hatching. So, it was na-
tural that the bird should acquire for life a cer-
tain faculty which appearel already among rep-
tiles from which it is descended. As we have
seen, the strange Archaeopteryx still represents
an unmistakable transition form from the general
reptile type to the bird. On the other hand, no
visible line leads from birds to mammals. The
bat is no more such a transition stage than a
whale is a transition from mammals to fish. In
both cases relatively highly developed mammals
have acquired independent adaptations, the bats
a flying apparatus and the whales a swimming
apparatus.

It is not difficult to imagine that the feathers

83

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

of the bird developed out of the scale of the
lizard. But it seems quite improbable that either
a scale or a feather should have been transformed
to such an extent as to assume the characteristic
form of hairy covering typical of mammals.
Scales, as well as feathers, have evidently been
from the very beginning essential means of pro-
tecting the skin, either in defense against
enemies, or in the case of birds, against the in-
clemencies of the weather. We observe that
scales serve that purpose occasionally even in
mammals, for instance, among armadillos. Some
whales likewise possessed something like that in
former times. But the typical covering of the
skin of mammals consists of hair. And it seems
that originally hair had nothing to do with pro-
tection such as is afforded by scales or feathers,
but rather served a wider purpose, embracing not
only protection but essentially feeling. The first
hair consisted of very fine feelers and performed
the functions of touch for the skin. It was not
until later on, when mammals acquired warm
blood, that hair assumed also the role of a non-
conductor of heat.

Now when we look about us to find the be-
ginnings of sense organs of the skin which might
have developed into hair, for instance, among

84

THE EVOLUTION QF MAN

lower vertebrates than mammals, we are carried
even beyond the scaly reptiles into the ranks of
amphibians with naked skins.

In distinction from reptiles, such as lizards,
snakes, crocodiles and turtles, the amphibians
embrace newts, toads and frogs. While these
animals do not have any hair, they nevertheless
have peculiar little sense organs precisely in
those places of the skin which, among mammals,
carry hair and which correspond pretty closely in
their arrangement to the plan of the hairy cover-
ing of embryos among mammals. According to
the biogenetic law, this might very well indicate
that the amphibians still show to-day the primi-
tive form of a genuine hairy covering. We
might well conclude from this fact that the most
ancient mammals, for instance, those creatures
belonging to the duckbill family which we dis-
cover in the first third of the saurian period, the
so-called Trias, are not descended from genuine
reptiles, but rather from amphibians which oc-
cupy a still lower position in the system.

Now, it happens that the living representatives
of amphibians still possess many a detail which
might be regarded as an indication of the direct
descent of mammals from them. It is remarka-
ble that many frogs and toads have very signifi-
es

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

cant habits of primitive care for their offspring.
Sometimes it is the males, sometimes the females,
that carry the eggs round with them. The male
of the European "Obstetric Toad" has the habit
of taking the spawn from the female, wrapping it
in strings round its hind legs and taking great
care to protect it. The female of the Pipa of
South America, on the other hand, carries it.c,
eggs on its back, having little pockets in the skin
of its back in which the eggs gradually mature
and in which the young hatch. Among other
toads, the skin has developed large hatching
pockets in which first the eggs and later the
young animals are carried about in just the same
way that we observe among the land duckbills
and the marsupials. Furthermore, various
glands of the skin play an important role among
amphibians. Everyone is acquainted with those
glands of the toad which excrete a sharp juice
serving as a protection against enemies. But
such glands as those play a role in the formation
of the pockets of the Pipa. It is not a very far-
fetched idea that the young animal hiding in such
a pocket might also begin to lick the excretions
of its glands, which need not necessarily be caus-
tic, but may serve as nutrition. If that is so, we
should find ourselves at once at that stage which

86

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

is represented among mammals by the duckbill,
the young of which licks, during its stay in the
pocket, the percolating juice of a gland.

On the other hand, it cannot be denied that
the general construction of a duckbill has many

A HUMAN EMBRYO,

in the middle of the fifth week of its development. It is
strongly magnified, its natural size being about one centimeter.
Note the gill-opening on the neck, the fin-like limbs, and the
plainly developed tail.

points resembling those of saurians, in other
words, of reptiles. The only marked difference
in their skeleton is the way in which the lower
jaw is attached to the skull. This separates rep-
tiles and mammals very distinctly. Indeed, the

87

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

EMBRYO OF A LAND DUCK-BILL.

Note the similarity to the embryos of man and monkey, both
of them in the same stage of development.

EMBRYO OF A MONKEY

in about the same stage as the human embryo. Note the simi-
larity between them.

88

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

attachment of the lower jaw to the skull in rep-
tiles and mammals represents the two extremes
of two independent methods.

Now the study of the fossils of the primitive
world gives us some clue toward a solution of
these contradictory questions. The historical
time which we should expect to represent the
transformation of the most ancient duckbill-
like mammals from the archetype next below
them in the scale of evolution, would be about
the transition from the Primary to the Second-
ary period, that is to say, a time midway between
the carboniferous and the first great saurian
epoch. As it happens, it is precisely this time
which again gives us some fossil testimony
touching unmistakably on the question now un-
der discussion.

The present living representatives of am-
phibians, such as newts, toads and frogs, were
evidently not in existence at that early period.
They are apparently a late bud on the branch
of amphibian descent. But in their place there
existed very strange and large amphibians, some
of them resembling crocodiles with more or less
solid bony armor. These amphibians possessed
many reptilian marks, so that they give the im-
pression that they were in transition from am-
phibians to reptiles.

89

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

Simultaneously with them, there lived certain
reptiles, small saurians which in many import-
ant respects looked like amphibians and on their
part represented a mixed group, the other end
of the bridge, so to say. Thanks to a happy co-
incidence a living grandchild of these amphibian
reptiles of the primitive world is still found at
this day in New Zealand. Its name is Hatteria
punctata. Its entire construction is such that it
represents a splendid illustration of the transition
form combining the newt and the present-day
lizard in an almost neutral shape.

Finally, as a third count, we mention the fact
that genuine large reptiles, some of them very
grotesque in form, lived in those primitive days.
The strange thing about them is that they have
undeniable resemblances, especially in the struc-
ture of their teeth to mammals. These are the
so-called Theromorphoi. Their bones have been
found mainly in South Africa, in Cape Colony.
Their resemblance to mammals was so striking
that their first discoverers naturally thought they
had found typical transition forms from reptiles
to mammals, and there are still many experts
who share this view. Nevertheless, the genuine
reptile marks, for instance, the adjustment of the
lower jaw, typical of the saurians, are so unde-

90

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

niable that there are strong objections to an en-
dorsement of that view. It is not credible that
the reptilian type should have been so well de-

HATTERIA PUNCTATA,

a reptile living in New Zealand, which is a surviving type of
the oldest primeval saurians.

veloped by evolution in the first place and then
continued on towards the mammal type.

If we weigh all the facts, it appears most
probable that a mixed group of ancestors existed

91

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

in those days of the latter part of the Primary
period, but that this group combined in the germ
amphibians, reptiles and mammals, just as we
saw at a later stage that the oldest mammals of
the Tertiary period took their departure from a
mixed group which contained the possibility of
evolution into Carnivora, ruminants, rodents and
prosimiae.

The members of this mixed group may have
resembled the present-day amphibian newts, so
far as the naked skin full of glands and sense
organs was concerned, and they may have had
p6ints of contact with them also as regards their
mode of living and otherwise. Their lower jaw
may have been so constructed that it might de-
velop in the style of a genuine reptile as well as
the other extreme of the genuine mammal, and
the remainder of its bony structure may for
many ages have resembled the living Hatteria,
while other characteristics may have recalled the
duckbill. Surely, their feet had five regular toes,
one of them probably being a flexible thumb, in
other words, the basis of the later "hand." The
teeth of this group must have pointed in the di-
rection of mammals.

This mixed group branched off into the various
side lines which we have already observed, each

92

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

one of them laying special emphasis on certain
points of the old form, showing the naked newt
in one place and the more reptile-like extinct
armored amphibian in another, and a genuine
reptile in still another place. The reptilians may
at first have assumed such forms as we still ob-
serve in Hatteria, and out of genuine reptiles
developed the birds at a much later period. Still
another side line would be represented by those
Theromorphoi of Cape Colony which, on the
whole, had a pronounced reptilian character, but
still preserved in their teeth and in a few other
points, such marks as have become typical later
on only for mammals. Finally, running parallel
with all the others the genuine mammals would
have gone their own way.

There is nothing of any consequence to pre-
vent us from assuming that these mammals,
which reached their highest stage in man, formed
the central line or the crown of the entire line of
descent. At any rate, they were the most intel-
ligent line, and they may also have been the most
favored physically and have deviated less from
the characteristics of the great archetype. In
view of all the facts known in this case, these
conclusions seem certainly logical and sound.

It is true that genuine fossil remains of this

93

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

hypothetical mixed group have not yet been lo-
cated. But it must be remembered that our dis-
cussion is now dealing with sections of the
earth's history which are extending into eons of
time in which all things are becoming indistinct
and vague. To the extent that we venture into
the dim past, our proofs must be founded more
and more on circumstantial evidence. No one
could expect that all the typical stages and their
inter-relations should be distinctly seen, it must
be sufficient to trace in its approximate outlines
the logical course of the main growth. There
are a great number of special witnesses to make
a good case for our further investigation.

We have now gotten far beyond the saurian
period into the so-called Primary age. We are
approaching those most ancient epochs which
gives us any direct evidence of primitive life on
earth by means of petrified specimens. We meet
in that period numerous masses of mineral
strata, which were once precipitated to the bot-
tom of the sea in the form of mud. These strata
bear no other fossil remains of animals than
those of fishes. Evidently these were then the
sole representatives of the animal world.

We receive the impression that all animal life!
I at that remote Primary age was concentrated in |

94

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

fishes, amphibians, reptiles and all other verte- 1
brates being contained in fish and no other verte-
jbrate existing beside them.

This historical testimony happens to coincide
exactly with the conventional system in which
the fish follow immediately after the reptiles and
amphibians. A fish is distinguished from an
adult newt, frog, lizard, turtle, bird or mammal,
including man, by the way in which it breathes.
All other vertebrates breathe through lungs in
the open air. But fish represent a perfect adapt-
ation to life in the water. Since a fish, however,
also requires air for breathing, it has developed
an organ which, being continuously surrounded
by water, can assimilate the air contained in this
water. This organ consists of the so-called gills
located in the neck of the fish.

Now, it is a fact well known to every school
boy that the so-called tadpole hatches out of the
eggs of newts, frogs and toads. This tadpole
lives exclusively in the water exactly like a fish,
and breathes only through regular gills. Not un-
til the newt or frog abandons the early stage of
the larva, does it acquire the faculty of breath-
ing through genuine lungs and shed the gills,
much in the same way that human children shed
their milk teeth. The tadpole is nothing less

95

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

than an embryo set free. * And from the
genetic law, which recognizes in the embryo the
portrait of its ancestor, we conclude therefore
that newts and frogs are descended from crea-
tures which breathed through gills, that is to say,
descended from fish, since they are the only
vertebrates from which we may choosex

But if these newts and frogs, according to the
assumption that we made a while ago, are noth-
ing but a side line of that main group from
which mammals also developed once upon a
time, nothing remains for us but to assume that
this main group in its entirety leads back to a
preceding station of water animals breathing
through gills.

Some one may object and ask how it is that
no other animals besides frogs and newts, say,
for instance, reptiles, birds and mammals up to
man, have preserved breathing through gills in
the embryonic stage. Why does not a young
human being first become a tadpole before it be-
comes a man? Well, in the first place, the bio-
genetic law is not absolute. Very often it shows
itself only in dim outlines. On account of subse-
quent adaptation for purposes of protection, or
for other reasons, some of those reversions to
type have been subsequently eliminated. The

96

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

most useful character in the last analysis pre-
vailed. And wherever a repetition of the charac-
teristics of ancestors was too tedious, this or that
stage was finally restricted or entirely eliminated.
What good could an early tadpole stage in the
water do a bird or a mammal ? On the contrary.
We see often among certain frogs and newts a
tendency to transfer the tadpole stage into the
egg, or to go through it before the young is
hatched at all. There is, for instance, a tree toad
on the Island of Martinique which has become
known through such a simplification of the evo-
lutionary process. The tadpole of this little toad
no longer hatches out of the egg.

But granted that all this is so, should not the
embryo of mammals, reptiles and birds show at
least traces of a tadpole or fish stage in the
mother's womb, or in the egg? It is the most
remarkable proof of the reliability of the bio-
genetic law that this is actually the case.

No matter what embryo we may study,
whether it is that of a lizard, a snake, a crocodile
or that of the New Zealand Hatteria, or of a
turtle, an ostrich, a stork, a chicken, a canary, a
duckbill, a marsupial, a whale, a rabbit, a horse,
or finally of a long-tailed American monkey or
anthropoid gibbon — the embryo at a certain stage

97

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

of its development always shows a perceptible
tadpole or fish stage. Its neck shows the marks
of the gills and the characteristic intervals be-
tween them by which the fish breathing in water
permits it to circulate freely and flow around the
breathing surfaces of the gills. Furthermore,
the limbs which the embryos are just forming at
this stage have likewise the plain outlines of fins.
They push outward in the shape of round disks,
and it is only the subsequent development which
results in their further transformation, that is to
say, into actual fins here, into the swift lower leg
of 'a horse with a single toe there, or finally into
the wings of a bird or the flying hand of a bat.
If any strict scientific proof were still needed for
our claim that all these higher vertebrates con-
verge into a common archetype, it is obviously
given everywhere by this common heritage of a
gill and fin embryo, either in the egg or in the
mother's womb. The gills and fins show that the
oldest archetype, with which we are now dealing,
was represented by a gill and fin animal — in other
words, by a fish.

There still remains this question to be an-
swered: How is it with human beings in this
respect? Every text-book on anatomy to-day
gives a satisfactory answer. The embryo of

98

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

human beings at a certain stage is likewise pro-
vided with traces of gills on its neck and with
finlike disks in the places where arms and legs
develop later on. This is as universally accepted
as the fact first stated by Copernicus that the
earth revolves around the sun. No man who has
the least respect for truth can deny this fact.
Nevertheless, there are people who find this very
plain fact of embryology very little to their lik-
ing, and who therefore frequently attempt to
brand it as a "falsification." But every university
text-book in the hands of every student of medi-
cine, which is used as a basis for the state exami-
nations, contains a statement of this simple fact,
and if any student were to deny it during his
examination he would be severely reprimanded
by the state examiner. People who still refer to
such undeniable and scientifically recognized
facts as falsifications place themselves outside
the pale of all moral premises and scientific re-
search.

It is a fact, then, that man is likewise de-
scended from the fish.

But, if we ask how it happened and what were
the external causes which transformed in the
far off primitive days a fish breathing through
gills into a land animal breathing through lungs,

99

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

there is once more a living form which gives a
direct clue. In a few small rivers of the eastern
part of the Australian continent, a creature has
been found which externally, so far as scales, fins
and gills are concerned, resembles a large salmon
or carp. But if we study its internal structure
we find that it has also perfectly developed,
serviceable lungs, and if we study its mode of liv-
ing the logical purpose of this double supply of
breathing organs becomes plain. During the
dry season the little rivers of this region dry out
almost completely. Nothing remains of them
but a few pools of bad, brackish water in which
the fishes are crowded together and encroach on
one another's supply of air. Under these trying
conditions, this strange animal swims to the sur-
face of the water, draws air into its lungs and
thus breathes after the manner of a genuine land
animal, which dispenses altogether with water
for breathing purposes.

This paradoxical fellow who can change him-
self at will into a fish and into a newt, has been
called the "newt-fish," and its Latin name is
Ceratodus. But this name was originally in-
vented for the purpose of applying it to a band
of fishlike creatures, which may be traced by fossil
remains throughout a long evolution far back into

100

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

the earliest Primary period, and which are distin-
guished by very peculiar teeth in the roof of the
mouth. And the Australian Ceratodus of our
day has exactly the same kind of teeth. Hence,

CERATODUS FORSTERI,

living in Queensland, Australia. It has gills, the regular
breathing apparatus of fishes, but also lungs, the breathing
organ of adult newts, frogs, reptiles, birds, and mammals.

we logically conclude that it has preserved this
peculiar double method of breathing from the
days of primitive creation, and we refer to it as a
last straggler of a real transition group from

101

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

primeval fish breathing through gills to the first
primeval animal breathing through lungs — in
other words, to that theoretical mixed group con-
taining the principal characteristics of amphib-
ians, reptiles and mammals. The fossil remains
of those primitive relatives of Ceratodus are con-
sidered as parts of creatures belonging to this
transition group. /At all events, this Australian*

)t Ceratodus shows very clearly what the conditions
are in which a lung may develop. This is simply
the outcome of lack of water, or lack of air in «

/the water. /

Some might ask how it happened that a new
organ could develop just when it was needed
most, very much like a fairy table which is set
whenever the wish is expressed. The witchery
of nature can never come out of the unknown;
it has always some logical connection. Indeed,
the lungs of Ceratodus on closer study reveal the
fact that they are merely a transformation of an
organ which all genuine fish carry with them —
the so-called swimming bladder. This swimming
bladder forms a sort of balloon filled with air in
the body of the fish, and it serves in the first place
as a means of overcoming the weight of the fish
in the water. This organ fulfills a useful purpose
in rising and sinking, and to this end it was pro-

102

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

vided with a valve for its regulation. Many fish
therefore retained an open connection between
the swimming bladder, the intestines and the
mouth for the purpose of inhaling or exhaling
air. This is the starting point of the lungs. The
balloon or bladder in the vicinity of the aesopha-
gus being filled or closed at will, it served at the
same time to feed the arteries of its walls with

A SHARK.

The sharks are a primeval group of ancestors of fishes and
are related to the family tree of man.

oxygen. Once it had come into operation, it
could under severe conditions be used as a sub-
stitute for the gills in times when water was
scarce. When these conditions continued for a
long period of time, the swimming bladder as-
sumed this role permanently and became a genu-
ine lung, while the gills atrophied until nothing
remained of them but traces in the embryo. Thus
the land animal sprang into being, or to express

103

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

it with a view to the great line of our evolution,
man emancipated himself from the stage of water
animals.

Now that we have found that Ceratodus is
the living representative of another "bridge/' or
at least one side of it, we are naturally anxious
to find the other pillar of that bridge. That is to
say, we should like to know what other species
of fish helped to make this bridge, for there is a
wide difference between fish and fish.

When we mention fish to a layman, his first
thought is of those kinds which he finds on his
table and with which, under the present condi-
tions of natural education, he is more familiar
than with zoological literature. The overwhelm-
ing majority of table fish consists of so-called
"bony fish," that is to say, all of them have a more
or less solid skeleton. All of the European river
fish belong to this class, the trout, the pike, the
carp, etc., and such sea fish as flounder, herring
and codfish. If we find a jar of delicious caviar
on our table, or if our meal is crowned with ex-
pensive Russian sterlet, we meet another group
of fish, the so-called Ganoids. The proudest rep-
resentative of this class is the sturgeon, the eggs
of which are used as caviar. These Ganoids are
especially distinguished by the fact that some of

104

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

them have a very soft skeleton, consisting of
cartilage instead of bones.

This cartilage skeleton becomes permanent in
a third group, which is not admitted to our table,
but may be found on that of the Chinese, the
sharks, which are known at least by name to
everybody.

Separated from these three groups of fish by
a wide chasm, there is a fish-like creature which
is very highly appreciated by gourmands— the
lamprey. "'

Finally, there remains one solitary and very
strange little fish, the so-called lancet-fish or Am-
phioxus, which is distinguished from all other fish
by the extreme simplicity of its structure.

A comparison of these five groups of fishes
leads to the following conclusions in regard to the
descent of man:

If it is a fact that Ceratodus is actually a part
of that bridge which connects with man, then the
other end of that bridge could not be found
among fish with a bony and solid skeleton, but
among those which have a cartilaginous skeleton,
the foremost ofk which are the sturgeons. Cera-
todus itself still has a soft skeleton similar to
that of the sturgeons. It is true that amphibians,
reptiles and mammals have a very solid skeleton,

105

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

more solid even than that of the trout and her-
ring. It is evidently a separate adaptation. The
connecting link following the Ceratodus class is
found below the entire class of bony fish which
are once again a special side line.

The Ceratodus class of fish have still other
conspicuous relations to fish of the sturgeon class.

A LAMPREY,

the representative of a group of fish intermediate between the
Amphioxus type and the Sharks.

The historical evidence coincides with these
marks, for sturgeons were present in extraordi-
narily large numbers during the Primary age.
In fact, there were so many species of them that
they represented for a while the entire fish family
on this earth. Wherever we see in museums

106

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

their beautiful resplendent scales, there we are
face to face with another disguise of man, which
takes us far back to the very beginning of the
Primary age.

Taking the soft skeleton as a basis for further
research, it becomes evident that sharks are the
next stage in our line of descent. The sharks
played likewise a very prominent role in those
primitive days, and to this day they are the most
dangerous as well as the most intelligent of all
fish. In a multitude of fine traits the shark is a
genuine prototype of higher vertebrates trans-
lated into fish life. The simple plan of four
limbs is sharply outlined in its fins, that charac-
teristic which has become so full of meaning in
the subsequent evolution. Our teeth, which have
become so typical in their present form as a mark
distinguishing man from all other animals, may
be derived by strict anatomical logic from a basic
plan found among sharks, which is actually start-
ling for the layman. The shark has a formidable
set of teeth. But, in its mouth, it has also de-
veloped a special trait in the way of thorny
bristles which also appear in a less developed
form in other parts of its body. The entire sur-
face of the shark's skin is covered with peculiar
and very fine, but rough, prickles, and the skin

107

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

of the mouth has developed these into specially
strong and solid thorns, evidently for the good
purpose of holding on to the food of these fish.
This is a typical illustration of the genesis of
"teeth" and without this clue it would be a very
difficult problem to explain their origin.

There are still further points of evidence. We
have just seen that the shark has the basic plan
of four limbs in the form of fins. The lamprey,
on the other hand, has none of that as yet, but it
has the beginning of a skull in a sort of skin and
cartilage* pouch. Amphioxus, finally, has not
even a trace of that. This would give us another
chain of evidence. XThe line of evolution seems*
to go upwards from Amphioxus by way of the
lamprey to the shark, and other things which we
observe at the same time fit very well into this x
^outline.

Throughout this region in the process of evo-
lution we find a number of details which do not
become intelligible until we meet them again in
very perfect forms in far higher stages. In the
life processes of some sharks, for instance, a
genuine placenta formation will suddenly appear,
the embryo being nourished through a placenta.
Like a flash of lightning the thought strikes us
that nature at this stage suddenly tried some-

108

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

thing which was temporarily feasible and served
as a means of adaptation, but was soon dropped,
and did not reappear and become typical until the
mammals arose.

Again, in the development of the eggs of the
lamprey, we see a sudden flaring up of almost
the identical method which has later become typi-
cal for the amphibians of the present day. All
these things indicate that at this stage we meet
once more one of those ancient mixed groups,
typical for our line of descent, which contained
the historical germs of all higher forms and were,
so to say, reservoirs for all the possibilities of
subsequent evolution.

At the same time, we approach at this stage
an entirely new and exceedingly significant point
of departure, the source of all vertebrates in gen-
eral.

What is the characteristic mark of a verte-
brate, including man ? The back bone, that great
internal prop of the body. Well, then, we see
the back bone growing softer and softer among
the Ceratodus class, sturgeons and sharks, and it
seems to dissolve more and more the further back
we trace it. In the lamprey and finally in Am-
phioxus .this backward formation is almost com-
pleted. There the proud column has become

109

TPIE EVOLUTION OF MAN

quite a thin thread of cartilage. It looks as if the
backbone had gradually melted away like a piece
of sugar in coffee. The spinal cord is no longer
surrounded by solid bone, it extends through
the body as a string of nerves, just as it does
among worms or insects. And nothing indicates
that typical characteristic which divides verte-
brates absolutely from all other animals, but the
position of this nerve string above the cartilagin-
ous thread and above the digestive tract, while
in all other animals the great nerve string is al-
ways located below the digestive tract. The back-
bone is here called merely the "chorda," and we
are here evidently at the point where the verte-
brates dissolve into invertebrates.

And what does it matter? If man is disguised
in a lamprey or an Amphioxus, then we may as
well look for him entirely outside of the verte-
brates. One species of lamprey, which bore their
way into the bodies of other fish and live as para-
sites upon them, were still mistaken for worms
by Linnaeus himself. And the discoverer of Am-
phioxus thought that he had found a snail, which
it indeed resembles far more than a fish when we
dig it up from its hiding place in wet sand and
see its transparent and lancet-like little body.

Any way, it makes no difference theoretically,

no

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

AMPHIOXUS LANCEOLATUS,

and its development in the egg. This development shows cross-
sections, first of a hollow ball, then of the stage when this ball
begins to double up, until an almost closed body with skin and
stomach membranes and one orifice is formed. The last stage
represents the so-called Gastrula.

Ill

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

if we descend still further even into the world
of the very low and entirely invertebrate animals.
Of course, in practice we shall have to apply, still
more than heretofore, what we have previously
said about circumstantial evidence. In the first
place, one source fails entirely at this point, that
of geology. We are compelled to push backward
far beyond even the Primary period into the very
dimmest time. All direct proofs suddenly fail at
this stage. There are no fossils beyond the Pri-
mary ones. The minerals of more ancient epochs
of the earth's development have been so trans-
formed by a process of crystallization, the cause
of which we do not yet understand, but which
are in some way connected with pressure and
heat, that impressions of fossil specimens of
former living bones can no longer be discovered
in them. Now these so-called crystalline slates
are evidently the product of water, hardened sedi-
ments of the sea, and there is no reason to assume
that the sea in which they were formed contained
no living beings at all. On the contrary, there
are important reasons contradicting such an as-
sumption. The animals of the Primary period
are far too highly developed to represent the very
first animals on this globe, unless we renounce the
idea of development entirely and believe that the

112

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

first fauna and flora fell ready made from heaven.
But the fact remains that from this time on we no
longer find any remains of the ancient animals
and plants, x If we wish to make further concluX

vsions we can only rely on the now surviving lower
and lowest creatures and look for points of con-
tact with them in the embryonic stages of higher^

^animal sx

With this understanding, we now proceed to
discuss the further evidences on which we may
rely from now on.

Among all the animals now known and living
below Amphioxus, there is only one single small
group which still shows a direct indication of a
backbone, the so-called ascidians. These are small
marine animals which -are surrounded by a cloak
of wood-like substance, very much as snails sur-
round themselves with a well-nigh closed house.
To judge by their general construction, these
ascidians would be most logically classed among
the worms, save for a few points of contact with
mollusks. Among these ascidians a fine thread
of cartilage appears, which has about the same
position as the "chorda" of Amphioxus. Most
of them have this cartilage only in the embryonic
or larval stage, but a few of them preserve it for
life. There is a strong possibility that the ascid-

113

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

ians are very closely related to the vertebrates.
It is true that on the one side they are buried
deeply in the worm type far below Amphioxus.
But on the other side they have the chorda, the
first trace of a genuine backbone. But since some
of them show this chorda only in the embryo
stage, it seems evident that their ancestors had
a still stronger hold on this rudiment, and were
therefore still closer to the vertebrates than most
of the present ascidians, which have evidently
somewhat degenerated in this respect. So that
Amphioxus and ascidians would be two branches
of the common archetype which would, first of
all, have developed the chorda. This archetype
in order to produce the present-day ascidians
must have been in all other respects unmistakably
a wormlike animal. In short,jwej2just jpok for
other traces of man — in worms.

The term "worm" applies in the system to an
enormous mass of different animals. There are
hundreds of groups of fundamentally different
worms. Some of them are of a higher order,
with blood and sense organs and a genuine cen-
tral nerve system. We would have to derive
vertebrates most likely from them. If so, we
should imagine a worm, which would not pos-
sess a chorda like Amphioxus or the lamprey, but

114

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

would at least have a nerve string, which could
later on develop into the spinal cord of a fish,
and below which the digestive tract would extend
in the form of a hose with one opening at each
end of the body. The entire form would have
no fin-legs, but would be a typical worm. This .
is the outline to which most of the present higher
worms actually correspond.

At the same time we now find lower groups
of worms which evidently belong further back in
the scale. They have no complex nerve appara-
tus, no blood system and no opening at the lower
end of the body. We are justified in assuming
that they represent an older type, a sub-stage of
the worm type. In other words, within the worm
family we should have to look for man in various
disguises leading from the complex to the sim-
ple. There is still something else to consider.
In our system, apart from the vertebrates, there
are still three other great groups of invertebrates
which are of a higher organization than the
worms. They are, first, the crustaceans' spiders
and insects; then, the mollusks, such as snails,
muscles and octopus and finally the echmoderms, **
such as star-fish, sea-urchins and related forms.
Not even the most daring anatomical speculation
can accomplish the miracle of deriving any one

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

of these three classes from the other, and it is
still less feasible to fit the vertebrates into any
one of them. It would be impossible to develop
an Amphioxus from a star-fish or an octopus.
Some have attempted a theoretical line of descent
from crustaceans to fish, but only by means of
such a yawning chasm that no rational investi-
gator went with them. The difference between
these things is too great.

On the other hand, it is remarkable that all
those groups may easily be traced back, each by
itself, to some higher worm. It is true that the
worm type to which the line of crustaceans and
insects attaches itself and to which, for instance,
our leeches and earth worms belong, is very dif-
ferent from an ascidian. Evidently there has
been a great deal of individual evolution within
the higher worm type. But nevertheless this
picture presents a great deal of probability. The
higher type of worm branched out into insects,
mollusks, echinoderms and vertebrates, and it had
four possibilities of evolution, among which only
the vertebrate was destined to win the crown —
the form of man. But this entire stage of worm
life proceeded from some still lower worm which
would therefore represent the next common sta-
tion of all worms, and with them all men.

116

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

If we now try to get a conception of the worm
in its lowest stage, we will find that its structure
is wonderfully simple. Imagine for a moment
that one limb after the other, one organ after
another, is cut away from a man, arms and legs,
the head, the spinal cord, the blood system, all the
parts and organs between the stomach and skin,
and that nothing remains finally but this skin and
a stomach fitting it closely. Furthermore, let the"!
(rectum be closed, which gave to the higher or- |
Jganized worm the form of a hose, and only one i
( opening remains for both assimilation and excre-l
tion.

Now such animals actually exist on the lowest
plane of worm life. In certain jelly-fish, there
lives a little parasite named Pemmatodiscus,
which is literally composed of nothing but skin
and digestive tract. There is also another animal
in our 'fresh waters which is a little above this
stage, the so-called Hydra. In the case of the
Hydra, its lower end has grown fast to the soil,
while its mouth is surrounded by fine tentacles,
and a few other details are slightly better de-
veloped. Might it be possible that we could fol-
low man down to this stage ?

We sometimes speak of a man who consists
only of "skin and bones." Well, that would still

117

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

be a vertebrate man. But now, we are asked to
eliminate also the backbone. Man is to consist
only of skin and stomach. These two organs are
now supposed to contain the germs of everything
which is later on developed to full bloom in the
human body, such as the nerve system, the blood
system, the nutritive system, the sexual system,
etc. This idea has seemed rather daring to some
people, in spite of the fact that a mere consid-
eration of the zoological system suggests it.
There we finally likewise arrive at the Hydra
by going from complex to ever simpler forms.
There is no escape from this logic, if we venture
at all into this vague domain of circumstantial
evidence. If we do this, the logical line of re-
search is the one we have followed. But there is
still another one, and it is peculiar that it leads
to exactly the same result.

We have not mentioned the embryo for some
time, but now we shall ask it once more to act
as a witness.

It is an anatomical possibility which, like all
such extreme speculations, is mainly proven by
its plausibility that another group of genuine in-
vertebrates may be derived from such skin-and-
stomach creatures as the Hydra, without passing
through that other line of development in the

118

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

evolution of worms. I speak of sponges, higher
polypi and jelly-fish. These would form a definite
circle, and all higher forms above the skin-and-
stomach animals of the lowest class would be
traceable to one common origin, viz., this skin-
and-stomach animal itself. But now we recall
that law which so frequently reproduces the por-
trait of ancestors in the formation of the embryo.
If the circumstantial evidence is to be conclusive,
then the embryonic development of all animals
from the jelly-fish to the vertebrate ought to re-
produce such a portrait, representing the double
cylinder of skin and stomach with one single
orifice, a prototype of Pemmatodiscus, or Hydra.
Here again all resistance is useless. It is unde-
niable that such embryonic marks reappear in all
nooks and corners of the higher classes of ani-
mals. Itjs that gfcge whfct* %rwi ha* Hp<?Jg-
nated as Gastrula.

It is hardly possible to find anything more
different than a coral, a higher worm, a sea-
urchin, a lobster, or a snail in the adult stage.
Nevertheless, all of them show such characteris-
tic skin-and-stomach larvae. They occur in many
of the animals named and become more frequent
with our progress in the direction of the lower
formation, where we find them in the shape of a

119

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

mere cylindrical embryo consisting of skin, stom-
ach and orifice, and swimming about freely. In
other cases, matters are not quite so plain, and
we meet with all conceivable variations. But we
have already seen that the biogenetic law never
excludes such modifications. The essential thing
is that even in the most daring deviations, the
relation to the Gastrula form is plainly percepti-
ble. In cases where no genuine cylinder is
formed, we meet at least two layers in the cell,
which are intended for the building of the body,
one of them corresponding to the intestinal mem-
brane of the genuine Gastrula, the other to the
external skin.

Nor do these things end among vertebrates.
On the contrary, the ascidians as well as Am-
phioxus still develop a typical Gastrula, a freely
swimming "arch-tadpole," consisting of skin,
stomach and orifice. And these relations remain
plainly perceptible throughout the entire course
of things, even in the embryonic life of the higher
and highest vertebrates up to a man and includ-
ing him. We speak of the Gastrula stage also
[among mammals, even if the external aspect of
'things no longer very closely resembles the orig-
inal picture, but requires more careful investiga^
tion to complete the proof.

120

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

It is now thirty years since Haeckel first con-
ceived the idea that this continuous and persistent
recurrence of the Gastrula embryo among higher
animals has the simple meaning that all animals
from the jelly-fish to man are descended from a
certain archetype far down to the lowest root of
the genealogical tree, which through all its life
was nothing more than such a Gastrula. How
this idea was derided and slandered in the be-
ginning! But gradually one zoologist after an-
other began to see that this idea of a Gastrula
offered an excellent means of practical research
in the process of evolution. Finally Haeckel's
idea penetrated everywhere, and to-day this term,
and the thing it stands for, are matters of fact
in all embryological descriptions. In every text-
book we read of the Gastrula. Especially the
Gastrula formation of mammals has given rise to
an entire literature, and writers are quite at home
in their use of the term "gastrulation" in speak-
ing of monkeys and man.

Under these circumstances, the further accept-
ance of Haeckel's logical conclusions is merely a
question of our attitude toward natural evolution
in general. If we accept it as probable to its re-
motest bounds, then we have no better and clearer
sketch than this: In the early dawn of animal

121

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

life, there lived creatures of a simple structure,
such as that of the present-day Gastrula-larvae,
or that of Pemmatodiscus, which are swimming
about freely and represent creatures that persist
all their lives in this stage. We may agree with
Haeckel in thinking that these most ancient skin-
and-stomach animals, for which Haeckel has pro-
posed the general term of "Gastraea," at a very
early stage tried two avenues of development.
Some attached themselves with the closed end of
their cylinders to the bottom of the sea and thus
developed into a Hydra form. In the further de-
velopment of this type followed a swarm of other
sea animals, the so-called plant and flower types,
such as sponges, corals, etc. But another group
of the Gastrula forms adopted the creeping mode
of life. Their bodies gradually approached the
form of a symmetrical cylinder. This would be
the line leading to genuine worms and then
through vertebrates to man. At any rate we have
for the present no simpler logical conception of
the road which we traveled, and logic is indis-
pensable so long as we are dealing with circum-
stantial evidence.

And now only one more short chain of conclu-
sions remains — the last glowing mountain top in
the morning light of our line of vision, before
the curtain of white mist is drawn across it.
122

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

Let us start at once from embryology, which
pointed in the right direction in our quest for the
preceding stage.

How is the Gastrula type formed ? Let us sup-
pose a typical case in which the Gastrula is still
swimming about as a genuine skin-and-stomach
larva, a little cylinder with an orifice at one end.
This little cylinder arises before our eyes by a
very simple process. Its starting point is the
fertilized egg. The Gastrula-larva is composed
of many little building stones or cells. An adult
animal may consist of many millions of cells.
But the genuine egg from which the development
of the embryo starts, generally, after fertilization,
consists of only one cell and never more than
one. *Just as surely as every human being comes X
from an egg which is attached to the ovarium
of the human female and which through contact
with the semen of a human male becomes fer-
tilized, just so surely this same human being alsox
Becomes out of one single cell.

Now between this single egg cell and the multi-
cellular Gastrula stage, we always observe the
following process, which occurs with iron con-
sistency: The egg splits up into two cells by a
process of fission, and two cells become four,
eight, etc., until there is finally a lump of many

123

The figures on these two cuts represent the development of a
uni-cellular arche-type and of a multi-cellular animal which pre-
served the simple form of a skin-and-stomach type. This is the
idea of Haeckel as to the development of the simplest forms of
animal life. To the right, we see the way in which a coral-
animal, Monoxenia Darurinii, develops from the egg-cell. This
cell divides into two cells, then into four, and finally, into a
lump of cells. This lump develops fine bristles on its exterior
surface, by means of which it revolves through the water. At
the same time it forms a hollow in its center, then doubles up
tgainst itself, until it becomes a double-walled (skin-and-stomach)

124

body, a Gastrula. The cuts on the left page represent the de-
velopment of an Amoeba, a unicellular animal which remains so
all its life, but propagates by fission. The two last cuts on the
left page show an animal now living in the North Sea, Mago-
sphaera planula. It never gets beyond this stage, which corre-
sponds to the hollow ball stage of the corals. The last cut on
the left page shows another animal now living, bisected. It is
Peinmatodiscus gastrulaceus. Haeckel regards these living forms,
Amoeba Magosphaera, and Pemmatodiscus, as present-day type*
of the primeval development of the animal world.

135

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

cells. In the center of this lump a hollow space
is formed, and a closed hollow bladder thus
arises. One part of this bladder gradually sinks
inward, and its cells form a hollow, which be-
comes deeper and deeper, just as if a boy were
pressing his finger into a perforated rubber ball.
In this way the bladder becomes a cup, consist-
ing of two cells bent against one another and wide
open toward the center. The cells of the inner
wall become stomach cells, and those of the outer
wall skin cells, the opening of the gap is the"
mouth, and the Gastrula is complete.

This process, I repeat, is typical throughout,
even in individuals, where the Gastrula itself is
no longer the end of the process. The play of
forces always begins with the disintegration of
the egg cell into many cells, which gradually
gather themselves into a lump like a mulberry.
The tendency to form a hollow cylinder, or blad-
der, always exists and the final end is always the,
formation of the genuine Gastrula stage, or of
its equivalent, that is to say, a double stratifica-
tion of the cells by a primitive arrangement of
the simple building material into two mem-
branes.

If the biogenetic law has any meaning at all,
it is that at this extreme end of evolution it has

126

TB

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

reached the climax of its consistency. The first
throbs of" the machine are still the same among
all animals, man included. What can that mean ?

Haeckel here made a significant suggestion.
All animals from the lowest to the highest come
out of one single cell. According to Haeckel,
this indicates that the most primitive ancestor of
all animals consisted all his lifetime of one single
cell. It requires no great stretch of imagination
to conceive such a uni-cellular animal. Even in
our day thousands of animal species are living,
every individual of which consists of one single
cell. Why should not such creatures have lived
at the time when all evolution began on the
earth?

Among all classes of animals, the embryonic
development begins with the fission of the one
cell into many cells. This is exactly the way in
which the present genuine uni-cellular creatures
propagate themselves. Whenever one of these
uni-cellular creatures is ready to propagate itself,
it simply splits up into two, four or twenty pieces,
as the case may be, and every one of these pieces
in its turn becomes a new uni-cellular individual.
Haeckel thinks that those primitive uni-cellular
structures follow the same method, propagated
in this way. But occasionally the offspring would

127

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

cluster together and form the first larger clumps
of cells. We know many uni-cellular animals
that do this to-day. These clusters of to-day are
mere aggregations of cells without any attempt
at organization, and most likely the primitive
uni-cellular clusters were likewise mere group
aggregations. But gradually these cell aggrega-
tions of primitive times entered into more inti-
mate social relations. They developed a certain
division of labor. All this came about as a sim-
ple consequence of natural conditions.

All the cells in the cluster wanted to eat, each
by itself, so all of them crowded outward when
the cluster drifted about in the water. In con-
sequence the cluster became a bubble, since all
the cells arranged themselves on the surface and
left the interior space vacant. This process at
this stage is still very well illustrated by the early
example of the Magosphaera. Under these con-
ditions, the probability was nevertheless that all
the rations obtained by the various cells would
not be equal. The hollow bubble drifted through
the water, or it gradually developed its own mo-
tion by the combined efforts of all cells, and thus
it rolled against tlie tide. The cells on the up-
stream side then obtained most of the food, while
the juices of the cells passed through the permea-

128

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

ble walls of the individuals into the other cells
clustered closely around them and down to the
other pole of the bubble, so that all of them were
fed. But nevertheless a certain part of this lump
of cells gradually developed a capacity for spe-
cial work in the interest of the entirety. The
other cells did not remain inactive during this
process. Since they were fed without being com-
pelled to perform the work of actual eating, they
devoted themselves much more actively to the
movement and protection of the whole. The
practical result was that the devouring cells were
gradually surrounded by a wall of protecting
cells, so that they assumed a sheltered position
in the center and were literally under the shelter
of the others. At the same time they had to re-
main in touch with the food that drifted down
against them with the time. So they bent inward
and formed a pocket by rolling themselves inside
all the other cells, just like an inverted glove.

I am giving simply some general indications
here, in order to suggest the way in which this
development might have come about. Surely
this, or some other method, must have been the
cause of the cuplike form of uni-cellular animals,
with the devouring cells, or stomach, in the cen-
ter and the skin cells in the periphery, the proto-
type of the Gastraea.

129

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

But if this was true in the beginning of animal
evolution in primitive days, it applies at the same
time to man's evolution. It was also his first
step: from a uni-cellular protozoon to the first
multi-cellular skin-and-stomach animal, which
stood still far below a sea-anemone, a jelly-fish,
an earth-worm, or star-fish, but which contained
the possibility of developing into anything, so to
say, into an Amphioxus, a shark, a newt, a duck-
bill, a primitive monkey, and, finally, into man.

Now, if man is contained in a uni-cellular
protozoon, he stands at the same time at the very
dawn of all known life. For not only animals,
but also plants, may be derived from such living
protozoa. To this day there exist such uni-cellu-
lar creatures which live by devouring other living
creatures. We find others which feed directly
on inorganic material, which eat, so to say, stones
instead of meat and bread like the others. The
one type contains the germ of the animal, the
other that of the plant. The next logical thought
will naturally be, that the representatives of the
plant type were first in existence, and that the
animal method developed as a secondary type, as
a sort of parasitism at the expense of the other
type. The vegetable organism consumed pure
earth, and baked out of it, by the help of sun-

130

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

light, its own "bread" or nourishing vegetable
matter. The animal type developed by the grad-
ual rise of the habit among some individuals of
eating up their mates and thus assimilating
"bread" in a prepared form. Evidently this must
have happened at a very early stage among the
protozoa. Later on the vegetable development
went its own independent way. The animal con-
tinued to use the plant as a food, with occasional
exceptions, where it devoured its own mates as
a sort of third alternative. But both types later
proceeded on their separate roads. The more in-
timate details of plant evolution do not concern
us here. Suffice it to say that far down in the
scale men are phylogenetically related also to
plants, and to this day man still devours them.

There remains but one question. Man was
contained in the germ in the very simplest forms
of primitive life on earth. Wherever life goes,
there he follows, down to the very atoms of
existence. Is there perhaps a last possibility of
deriving all life from "something else"?

I must discuss this question a little more in de-
tail. It has always been a sort of parting of the
ways for a great many people who thought about
the origin of the human race, and in some un-
scientific circles this question is frequently played

131

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

as a last trump for that very purpose. We may
observe and note the fact that even the Darwinist
mode of thought at this point permits of certain
peculiar inconsistencies and differences among
its champions. Men who are standing serenely
on the ground with men as descended from ani-
mals have considerable disagreement at this last
point of departure, and an unbiased discoverer
cannot help coming to the conclusion that in mat-
ters of the origin of life itself no well established
theory exists for the time being. So this point
is constantly exploited as an open field. It is
admitted that up to this point the arguments and
facts are in favor of natural evolution. But
henceforth everything is considered possible. The
first life may have been "created"; in other
words, it may have arisen without any adequate
logical reason. Now this term "create" has some-
thing peculiar about it. If I as a human being
"create" anything, there is always an adequate
reason for it. Everybody knows that we cannot
stamp armies out of the ground, or produce a
field of corn by waving our hands. The smallest
boy who whittles a wooden boat knows that he
needs wood, knife, fingers and other things for
that purpose. And as a matter of fact our entire
practical life is permeated by this conception of

138

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

cause" and effect, of the inter-relation of the
things which we must and will "create." If we
apply merely this current conception of the term
"create" to the evolution of man and of life it-
self, a little clear, thinking will show that it co-
incides perfectly with the course of natural de-
velopment of things from stage to stage. If we
conceive of the fundamental forces of nature as
something which can "create" things in the way
that we do, thus creating finally man himself, we
cannot admit from our own experience any other
possibility for the creation of things than a simple
and gradual procession leading step by step
through the path of natural inter-relation. The
most consistent form of Darwinism and this sort
of creation do not exclude one another in any
way ; they rather coincide completely during the
entire portion of the process. Evolution so con-
ceived is merely a logical line of creation, and
it is the immanent' logical method of creation.

But the champions of the idea that the so-called
first beginning of life is the end of Darwinism
and the starting point of creation, do not apply
these terms in the sense just explained. They
are thinking of a creation for which we have not
the least proof nor experience, and for which
civilized mankind has no explanation except that

133

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

of witchery, that is to say, an origin of things
without any causal connection, without any prem-
ise, without adequate reason. Life is supposed
to have arisen in its most primitive form by a
miracle. There are a great number of people
who fancy that they have rescued their entire
world-philosophy by asserting a miracle at this
one point. But most of them are of the opinion
that they cannot accept the idea of evolution, and
the animal descent of man from a protozoon, un-
less we admit a second miracle further up in the
scale. Just as the first life cell at the lowest end
of evolution is supposed to have been a miracle
without cause, so the first genuine rise of con-
sciousness, far at the top, in the first genuine
human being, is explained by a miracle, regard-
less of any logical connection with the process of
evolution. However, this last speculation is ac-
tually superfluous, even from the standpoint of
those who champion it.

In my opinion, the fundamental facts of con-
sciousness are found in every simple sensation. I
feel this or that impression, light or dark, pleasure
or pain ; that, it seems to me, is the simplest form
of "becoming conscious of anything," and this
simplest form of sensation was doubtless pos-
sessed by the most primitive living cell. We may

134

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

observe it in the very lowest forms of life.
Moreover, modern scientific research cannot dis-
pense with it as an inseparable quality of every-
thing to which we apply the term "life." Of
course, a uni-cellular protozoon, a radiolarian or
an amoeba, does not reflect any stimuli in the
same way that the infinitely more perfected and
sensitive thought apparatus of human conscious-
ness does. But these first animals nevertheless
have the basic element, of this reaction in their
simplest sensation, such as avoiding light or
twitching at a touch. Such an animal feels itself
directly as an "I," if not consciously reflecting,
then at least intuitively. The differentiation of
sensations throughout the scale up to man is
merely a question of an infinite chain of develop-
ment without any interruption. But if it be as-
sumed that the life of a protozoon, or an amoeba,
was created by a miracle, then this same miracle
simultaneously created consciousness, and all the
rest could be left to the operation of the laws of
transformism.

The question is only whether we must admit
such a miracle even at this very first point of de-
parture, were it only as- a logical help, as a Ijv,-
pothesis *even acceptable to the inductive method
of scientific Darwinism and natural history. So

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

far as I am personally concerned, I wish to em-
phasize that I have endeavored most earnestly for
many years to arrive at an unbiased opinion on
this question. I have asked myself again and
again whether it could not be possible to meet
our antagonists half way at this point, and thus
do away with an unspeakably painful strife
which is disturbing the work of civilization at the
present time, and at the same time to reconcile
two parties which have, each of them, a great
number of worthy and absolutely honest repre-
sentatives, who long for an understanding of the
riddles of life. I am compelled to admit frankly
that the result of all my deliberations has inevita-
bly led to the same inexorable conclusion. The
answer was always a determined "No." And
it cannot be otherwise. Whoever is convinced of
the causal and natural evolution of man from
uni-cellular protozoa, cannot reconcile his logic
with a change of method in explaining the exist-
ence of these primitive protozoa. He cannot at
(this point drop the principle of causal inter-rela-
[tion on the chance of exchanging it for the prin^
ipple of miracles.

Our logical thought, which is itself based on
the principle of cause and effect, would have to
demand in that case the same miracle for its own

136

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

method of thought ; it would have to do so to-day
in myself and in every other student of nature.
But this miracle never appears to-day, and so it
must have been at the very beginning of things.
The miracle failed to materialize then as it does
now.

The situation is by no means so hopeless as the
champions of miracles frequently represent it. All
attempts at other logical explanations do not fail
by any means at this point. There are quite a
number of probabilities, none of them in any way
miraculous, which we might discuss before we
come to the question of the origin of the primitive
protozoa. These possibilities may contradict one
another and exclude one another, but they are
nevertheless there, and most of them furnish a
fairly firm support which we cannot pass by in
silence.

It has been said that historical life certainly
did not put in its first appearance on the earth
at the point where to-day the most ancient fossil
remains are found. It must have existed millions
of years before that time, in order to arrive at the
stage of development which meets us in these
first fossils. Now there is nothing to prevent us
from extending the term of evolution infinitely, —
so far into the past that we arrive at a concept

137

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

which human beings are in the habit of calling
"eternity." The earth, which was present in that
eternity, could very well have harbored from
time immemorial the lowest forms of life, for in-
stance, uni-cellular amoebae or bacilli or the
earliest plant cells.

These primitive types reflect the result of some
special stimuli which were due to the development
of that time, and these types were then started
into a course of higher evolution leading up to
man. This theory is logical and perfectly sound.
The living arch-cell in that case is simply an
eternal form on this globe, and we may use these
terms in the same way in which every student of
physics speaks of heat as an eternal form of uni-
versal force.

However, this idea is combated by an argu-
ment taken purely from a universally accepted
conception of geologists as to certain primitive
historical evidence in the formation of the entire
earth. There are certain valid reasons which
speak in favor of the probability that this globe
was an enormously hot and glowing body, such
as the sun is even now, and .contained all of its
substances in a state of white heat or gas. Many
of the reasons on which this conception is based
have been found to be open to attack. But most

138

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

of them still persist and are regarded as sound,
and we have to-day only a very small number of
genuine experts in geology who do not accept the
theory of a sunlike stage of the earth.

This conception changes our picture of life
processes. Life may be extended many millions
of years beyond the time of the most primitive
fossils. But finally there comes a time where the
earth is a glowing ball of the temperaure of the
sun, which transforms all metals into a hot gas
and in which no amoeba can live or has ever
lived. There are plants which live in hot springs
and can stand a temperature of 100 degrees C.,
and dry spores or bacilli can endure a still higher
temperature without perishing. But it is an ab-
solutely impossible idea that an amoeba could still
live in a world where even water cannot exist
and where the heat keeps all elements perma-
nently in a gaseous state, even iron. It is not
until the globe has cooled sufficiently in ice-cold
space to acquire a solid crust that the first pre-
cipitations of water with living beings of the
simplest form are visible upon it. But even this
state of affairs does not in any way justify the
assumption of a miracle. There are two other
possibilities which may be explained out of na-
tural and logical conditions of existence on that
globe.

139

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

Some might ask at this point whether the most
1 primitive and simple forms of life may not have
(immigrated and settled on the cooled globe. We
know that small and large parts of matter are
continually falling out of space upon the earth,
the so-called meteorites. Might not the germs of
life fall likewise upon our planet in the same
way ? The simplest spores of bacilli, such as are
perpetually whirling through the air, would have
been sufficient to carry the germs of life for all
stages of evolution up to man on the surface of
the globe. The spores *of such bacilli endure a
. cold temperature of more than 200 degrees C.
The temperature of space will certainly not be
much lower than that, and the bacilli of this kind
also can get along for a long time without any
air, so that the space without any air between
the different planets and suns would not be an ob-
stacle to the transmission of living spores of
bacilli. It is not at all necessary to fall back on
the assumption that a meteorite, which by the
way is generally ignited by the friction of the
earth's atmosphere, must have carried the germs
of life. The earth's atmosphere may have been
"infected" directly by floating germs. Such a
conception leads finally to the idea of "eternity"
of the lowest forms of life. It would be very easy

140

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

to. imagine that certain spores of the simplest liv-
ing matter are distributed throughout space from
all "eternity," the same as the dust of iron and
other elementary substances. These germs, held
in a sleeping state so long as they are drifting in
the cold atmosphere far away from air and water,
would wake to genuine life and develop to a
higher form as soon as a sufficiently cooled world
body should offer them air and water. But who
is going to determine by means of our limited in-
struments and the present imperfect state of our
knowledge of bacilli, the origin of every one of
the myriad spores which are floating round us
everywhere? However, we are not at all com-
pelled to accept this one hypothesis in order to
rescue our idea of causality. There is a second
and better explanation which has always had
some champions, but would have had still many
more if it had always been put in such a form as
is required in order to meet all crude objec-
tions.

It has been said that life developed at a cer-
tain period, when the conditions for its rise
existed, and developed out of the so-called in-
organic dead matter in the same way in which a
certain chemical combination, say water out of
oxygen and hydrogen, or crystals, arise under

141

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

given conditions. This conception stated in this
bare form is startlingly simple. There were
enough inorganic substances on this planet, even
though in a state of white heat. Whenever a
planet cooled, all these substances passed through
certain stages of development. Water, for in-
stance, then became an inevitable product of evo-
lution. Why 'should not life be another product,
like water, which developed also at that stage
from so-called dead matter? Many very clear
and circumspect brains have been satisfied with
this simple formulation of the theory of life, and
welcomed it as a perfectly rational solution.
While in our present historical period life comes
only from life so far as we know, it was assumed
that in those primitive days the first life rose out
of inorganic matter, and this was called "sggn,-
taneous generation." And it was generally con-
sidered an open question whether such "spon-
taneous generation" took place only in the begin-
ning, or whether it may have taken place in
subsequent ages, occasionally even to-day, along
with the normal mode of generation, at least
among the very lowest animated beings, though
it has never been observed. Now it cannot be
denied that this mode of solving the riddle is
neither a serious nor a convincing one. It is in-

' 142

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

deed simple, but so is the solution of the Gordian
knot which, according to the legend, was not
solved by a clear grasp of the question, but by
a blow of the sword. The idea of evolution re-
quires that the thing which develops must ex-
plain the cause of its development by another
thing out of which it developed. There must be
as close a relation between these two things as
there is between father and son, a deep-seated
and intimate likeness combined with an assump-
tion of differentiation through progress. Such a
relationship and likeness exist between certain
chemical and physical qualities and parts of the
living amoeba, and such simple chemical combin-
ations of so-called inorganic substances, as water,
air and the like. But there is no such likeness
in regard to the most characteristic mark of an
amoeba, that is to say, subjective feeling, which
is completely missing in purely chemical reac-
tions. Here, we have the old and always relia-
ble philosophical axiom that "sensation" cannot
be derived from mere "motion." It is true that
the field of sensation likewise is strictly under the
control of the law of causation and does not ad-
mit of any "miracles." But, for this very reason
•it is never possible to derive a process of sensa-
tion from so totally different a thing as a process

143

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

of motion in physics and chemistry. In the chain
of cause and effect, feeling is only followed by
feeling and motion by motion. The place of a
link in one series is never taken by a member of
the other series. The attempt to substantiate
this statement in detail would lead too far away
from our subject. Suffice it to indicate that the
distinction between feeling and motion must be a
fundamental demand of every refined and work-
able theory of understanding. And an ignoring
of this demand would carry us into a fatal laby-
rinth of ideas. It may seem at the first glance
that this statement kills the idea of "spontaneous
generation" with one blow. But this is by no
means the case.

It hits merely the crude conception of it. In
order to give it a more refined and impregnable
form, it is necessary to extend somewhat our
definition of the "inorganic," that is to say, of
nature below the first living cell. We may then
maintain our hypothesis that the first cell, the first
genuine living being, arose on this earth through
natural development, when the surface of the
globe had cooled to a certain temperature, and it
originated out of the so-called inorganic sub-
stances of the earth which had long been pres-
ent. We have only to add that these substances

144

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

A HUMAN OVUM,

bisected and strongly magnified. Its actual size is that of a
dot barely visible to the naked eye. This ovum, when detached

from the female ovarium, represents a genuine " cell." It is

surrounded by a membrane, which is penetrated by the male

sperm-cell in the act of fertilization. The soft interior mass
contains a large " nucleus."

145

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

had not formed any genuine living cell up to that
time, but they nevertheless possessed in them-
selves the requirements for the generation of such
a cell at a favorable temperature. And we must
add, furthermore, that these substances pos-
sessed not only the chemical and physical ele-
ments of matter and motion out of which the
special structure of the cell could rise under given
conditions, they also had a general basic element
of feeling out of which the same life of the cell
could be built. In other words, we must start
from the simple assumption that, in some way,
feeling is a basic property of all matter in the
universe, including all inorganic substances. This
fundamental quality is not affected by any degree
of temperature, nor dependent upon it. A large
number of the clearest thinkers in this field have
arrived at this idea by various roads and have
admitted it frankly. Among modern scientists,
I mention only Fechner and Haeckel.

Haeckel, who has championed and popularized
this idea of "spontaneous generation" more ener-
getically than any other man, has at the same
time incessantly emphasized in various parts of
his works that he considers primitive feeling as
an essential and fundamental quality of all matter
in the universe. If this is understood, we shall

146

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

have no further difficulty in accepting the idea of
the natural evolution of life on the surface of
this globe. In this case life would simply repre-
sent one point of aggregation, a focus of that one
faculty of nature, "feeling." It would simply
be a product of concentration, much as the forma-
tion of the entire sun or earth represents a prod-
uct of concentration of another faculty, gravita-
tion. This product of concentration may have
had its own peculiar chain of causation. Consid-
ering that we have found life only in connection
with definite chemical conditions which do not
admit of any white heat, there is nothing to pre-
vent us from assuming that its own laws of evo-
lution could not arise until the primitive heat of
the globe had been mitigated.

Let us also mention at this point that Fechner
and more precisely Preyer, also considered the
possibility that the cell life known to us might
represent merely a product of adaptation to a
cooler atmosphere, while the concentration of
feeling in the primitive atmosphere of the sun
was conditioned on another chemical form of
adaptation useful in that other environment. But
in principle all this is immaterial, and we aprjly
the term "life" only to cell life between the stages
of the amoeba and man. This life, at all events,

147

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

did not arise until the earth had passed the stage
of red heat. This would be the historical stage
at which the conditions became favorable for the
much discussed "spontaneous generation."

It was necessary to touch upon this rather dif-
ficult line of thought at least to this extent, be-
cause the confusion which reigns in this regard
is very general and fatal. No one can be obliged
at present to champion any one of all these
theories. But one thing at least must be ad-
mitted, we are not in such need of ideas for a
natural explanation of life that we are absolutely
compelled to seek refuge in miracles. Of course,
while we are still in the field of the "natural,"
we must also admit frankly on the other hand
that our actual knowledge of the fundamental
problems of life is still so incomplete at this day
that it is well to pursue our studies along many
different roads. It is quite probable that in our
further research along this line, we shall meet
many surprises and find many new theories, for
we know very little of the internal processes that
take place even in the simplest cell. There is
still a world before us which we have barely
touched. But not all riddles lie concealed on the
side of life. We are also far from seeing clearly
into inorganic problems, all declarations to the

148

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

contrary notwithstanding. The simplest proc-
esses of crystalline formation, in which by some
internal means definite individual forms are pro-
duced, are still as dark to us, so far as their
causes and inter-relations are concerned, as the
nature and origin of the living cell. The simple
mechanical process of attraction and repulsion
is still as unknown to us as the simple funda-
mental process of feeling. If we deliver man at
the boundary of primitive life on earth into the
hands of these mysteries, we are merely conscious
of the fact that we have taken him back to the
limits of our present perceptive powers. Beyond
that limit we do not venture. We simply main-
tain that the law of causation is not interrupted
at that boundary, and we agree with the astrono-
mer, who does not doubt that the law of gravi-
tation is still in force even in those places, which
he cannot reach with his eyesight or his instru-
ments.

There is still another thing which is intimately
connected with the condition of our present
knowledge concerning the origin of life. To un-
derstand quite logically at present all the laws of
evolution of this life involves an understanding
of the first problem. We have watched the dis-
guises through many different forms of animals

149

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

which man assumed in the course of his develop-
ment. These animal forms become ever more im-
perfect, ever more simple, until they reach the
uni-cellular protozoon. There is no doubt that
we have watched the general course of a grand
upward evolution, the highest and most central
branch of which is topped by man himself. But
now we should naturally like to know what was
the compelling motive of this development.
What controlled and determined the laws of
growth and development? Why did not the first
cell remain a primitive cell ? Why did it not con-
tinue to generate nothing but primitive cells in
all the millions of years? Why did some of its
offspring rise higher and higher, up to the tri-
umphant summit of mankind? These questions
are certainly natural, and they are the object of a
large part of that scientific research to which we
apply the general term of Darwinism.

However, this is another problem. We may
submit the course of evidence which I have out-
lined from man to amoeba and may still believe
that we do not know anything definite about the
compelling motive of this development. We may
calmly say that we know too little of the origin
and fundamental laws of life and cannot com-
mand at present an understanding of the laws

150

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

controlling the development of life by studying
them directly. We may be content to watch the
finished work of those laws, the uninterrupted
chain from amoeba to man.

If there is one who does not care to go so far
with us, he will at least emphasize that all our
theories of the nature of these laws must neces-
sarily be loose, changeable and capable of im-
provement in view of the present state of our
knowledge. It is true that this is frequently
overlooked. We often hear it said that Darwin-
ism is on the decline. It is claimed that Dar-
winism is dissolving and disintegrating into a
wild confusion of different opinions among the
experts, and that not a stone of the original build-
ing of the principle of Darwinism will remain in
the near future. But this is sheer nonsense, so
far as that line of facts is concerned, which we
have presented in this work, that line which con-
nects all living beings by one common descent
and locates man himself on this genealogical tree.
These facts are daily becoming more impregnable
and firm, and we may calmly spread them among
the people as a secure acquirement of scientific
research. But it is true, and not at all a matter
for surprise from the standpoint of the theory
of evolution, that there Is a great difference of

151

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

opinion as to the nature of the active principle
of development. The general mistake of con-
founding this special field of research with the
whole of Darwinism may perhaps be pardonable
when we remember that Darwin himself has
speculated a great deal about these "laws/"' and
whoever wishes to write on these things, to dis-
cuss them, either for or against Darwinism, and
instruct others about them, should at least be
sufficiently trained in scientific thought to dis-
tinguish between these two departments of
science.

Darwin tried in his time to give us a clear
formulation of the laws of evolution, by which
he did not attempt to prove that all living beings
developed out of one another, but why they did.
If this formulation is true, it is a matter of
course that it would also comprise man and show
us why he had to develop.

Darwin's theory is based on the following line
of thought. Here we have a simple, primitive
animal form. It is so far adapted to external
conditions and has developed such faculties that
it can exist, maintain itself, and propagate its
kind. But now a long space of time elapses.
We then find in place of this animal form a new
one, which is much better adapted to the same

152

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

conditions. Or, again, these conditions have also
changed in the meantime, and we observe to
our surprise a new animal form, which is still
in many points like the old one, but also adapted
to the new conditions. What has happened?
This sketch, according to Darwin, represents in
principle the entire evolution. The conception
of better "adaptation" includes also mental prog-
ress, brain evolution, and in this way a road
leading from amoeba up to man produces the
entire line of descent which we have been trac-
ing. To explain this line of march would be
equivalent to explaining the steps from an amoeba
to a man. And Darwin attempts this explana-
tion.

The first archetype propagated its kind. This
offspring consisted of individuals which, for some
reason or other, were not entirely alike. They
were all individuals, differing more or less, just
as the children of some parents differ among
human beings, just as the offspring of plants
differ, and just as a brood of rabbits have dif-
ferent colors. These variations represented
either an advance or a retreat compared to the
characters of the archetype. Some of the off-
spring were superior to their parents, others
were average individuals, and still others were

153

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

inferior. Now these individuals entered into
competition with one another for the means of
life and into a struggle against the conditions
surrounding them. In other words, they entered
into the "struggle for existence." The result of
this struggle was different for different in-
dividuals. The superior type, which were best
adapted or adaptable to their environment, suc-
ceeded best in propagating their kind and in sur-
viving in the greatest number, while the average
type and those inferior to it succumbed. In this
way, only the superior breed survived and propa-
gated its kind. The offspring of this superior
type were in their turn subjected to the struggle
for existence. A selection of the fittest operated
on them as it did on their predecessors. This
continued uninterruptedly. In the course of the
various generations, continuous improvement, an
up-breeding of the type, and a more and more
perfect adaptation as well as fitness to survive,
naturally resulted. Furthermore, there was an-
other possibility which must be considered. A
change took place in the external conditions, sud-
denly requiring of the living beings an entirely
new adaptation. In that case, it was not the
superior type developing along the line of the
improvement of the parent type which had the

154

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

advantage, but certain individuals which departed
most widely from the parent form in a certain
direction corresponding most nearly to the new
requirements. Take it, for instance, that the
climate changed. A plain formerly covered with
a brownish mould was suddenly and permanently
covered with snow. The brown plain had been
inhabited by brown rabbits. Up to the time of
this sudden change it was always those individ-
uals of the offspring which most closely re-
sembled in color the tint of this plain that sur-
vived in the struggle for existence; for brown
coincided with brown and was not easily detected
by the enemies of the rabbits. But now white
suddenly became the best adapted color. Hence-
forth those rabbits had the greatest chance to
survive which happened to be white as a result
of individual variation. These were now pre-
served, they propagated their kind and left be-
hind them a growing number of young, which
continued to marry white with white. In the
course of years the entire rabbit nation became
white — an adaptation to snow.

This logic of Darwin's seems irresistible so
long as we admit that individual variations al-
ways offer sufficient material for selection — in
other words, that there were always a sufficient

155

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

number of individuals following by natural selec-
tion a line of development improving the arche-
type; and, furthermore, also a number of other
individuals varying according to special adapta-
tion.

Once this assumption is granted, all the rest
is merely a mathematical problem, the mill of
evolution being forced to grind. But the ques-
tion of superior characters and individual varia-
tions contains many deeper problems, as Darwin
himself was well aware. What was it that de-
termined the number of superior individuals and
special adaptations, what was the determining
factor guaranteeing the presence of certain in-
dividual characters in every case?

This point has been the object of incessant
discussion, and the end of it is not yet. We might
believe that the life methods of the parents them-
selves might, in a certain way, have a determin-
ing effect on the appearance of certain characters
among different people. For instance, if I am
a passionate ball player all my life, is it possible
that there may be at least one of my children
which would have inherited a talent for ball
playing? The explanation of the problem has
been attempted. It was declared that exercise
on the part of the parents would always serve

156

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

to pave the way for inclinations of the children
along the same line. The logical outcome of
this argument is a position which had been aimed
at long before Darwin by Lamarck. In the last
analysis, the selection in the struggle for ex-
istence might be entirely eliminated so far as
the pure intensification of hereditary tendencies
is concerned, and all specially adapted children
could be considered as the outcome of special
characters acquired by the parents through spe-
cial exercise. Apart from the fact that this
explanation does not explain some other things
and is not satisfactory to us in a good many
other respects, for instance, when we are called
upon to explain how exercise should be able to
heighten or change the color of brown rabbits,
there is one great difficulty which is not met by
this theory. It has been denied that characters
acquired by the parents through exercise could
ever be transmitted to offspring. If I play ball
for thirty years and all my muscles and nerves
are perfectly trained for that purpose, and if at
the end of that time I propagate my kind, it is
supposed to be impossible that a child then born
should be more predisposed in its bodily structure
for ball playing than any other child. August
Weisman carried this doubt to its extreme. It

157

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

cannot be said that he has made his point. But
his objections have at least demonstrated that
even the simplest facts are at present very hard
to present and explain. In another direction,
Hugo de Vries has attempted to show that the
formation of varieties, superior types and talents,
is far more extensive than Darwin ever sus-
pected, no matter what their cause may be. De
Vries thinks that there is a great periodical proc-
ess of formation which takes place side by side
with the simple and minute variations of the off-
spring of any species, and this greater process
develops an enormous number of new forms.
This struggle for existence then selects from
this large number those of less value for the time
being and eliminates them, and the surviving
species will appear as perfectly new ones. This
idea, the so-called "Mutation/ Theory/ has not
been sufficiently explained, although it is doubt-
less a very important suggestion.

The opinions of the scientists are still divided
on such points as these, because there are evi-
dently still many logical and natural possibilities
which affect the obscure problem suggested by
Darwin. It is quite certain that the problems of
the means by which variations are brought about
are of the highest importance for the descent of

158

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

man. But these problems run parallel to the
question of descent which we have discussed in
this little volume, and it is not necessary to wait
for an explanation of those ulterior questions,
nor to substantiate the claims here set forth.
In regard to all these researches, we meet at
present a temporary limit to our perceptions and
understanding, but this does not prevent us from
enjoying the results of the studies which we have
carried to success within the present field of
acquired knowledge.

The question of the descent of man belongs to
one of the fields which are thoroughly conquered
by science, and neither complaints nor doubts
can alter this fact. There is nothing more to do
but to meet these things bravely. Human beings
ever remain what they are. No one can rob
them of their nature. All our ideals likewise
remain undisturbed. Whoever feels within him-
self the force of a deep spiritual life, the living
breath of nature, will not be wrecked by the fact
that his ancestor did not only wear a rough and
hairy animal skin as a protection for his naked
shoulders, so and so many years ago, but also at
a certain period previous to that wore an animal
skin grown fast to his own body. Poetry did not
die when it became known that it is not the sun

159

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

which actually rises in the east, but the earth
which revolves toward it. Genuine religious
feeling is truly something very human, using
these terms in their very widest and sublimest
meaning, and a cold fact from the history of hu-
man evolution cannot dampen this spirit. It is
a triumph of modern human powers that we can
resurrect the past from the tombs of millions of
years. That is what makes those ancient pic-
tures so inspiring. But we should not be worthy
of this triumph if we did not have the strength
to dominate the spirits of the past with the calm-
ness of a master who can look at them serenely
and say : "You are of the past and the struggles
of the past belong to you ; but / am, and above me
are my stars."

THE END

160

LATEST BOOKS

1905—1906.

LIBRARY OF SCIENCE FOR THE
WORKERS.

This new series of the latest and best writings
in popular science in simple and popular style
and at the low price of fifty cents a volume, has
met with a success far beyond what we had
counted upon, and we shall without doubt make
rapid additions to this library in the near future.
Meanwhile we recommend the books already is-
sued and announced as indispensable to an
understanding of the latest tendencies in modern
science for those who have not the leisure for
years of study.

BOELSCHE, Wilhelm. The Evolution of
Man. Translated by Ernest Untermann.
Cloth, 50 cents.

This popular work, already in its sixth thou-
sand, is by no means a mere summary of Dar-
win's ''Descent of Man;" it is rather a summary
of the work accomplished by a whole generation
of scientists along the lines opened up by Darwin.
He was too genuine a man of science to claim
that a theory was proved before the proofs were
ready, and those who know the evolution theory
only from the cheap reprints of his great works
are sometimes confused by the noisy claims of
theologians to the effect that evolution is still an
unproved theory. This little book gives the proof
in form as readable as it is convincing." The
"missing links" so much talked of a generation
ago have been found, and their pictures are in
this book.

LATEST BOOKS

FRANCE, R. H. Germs of Mind in Plants.

Translated by A. M. Simons. Cloth, illus-
trated, 50 cents.

A cardinal point in the philosophical systems
favored by the ruling classes is that the mind of
man is something unique in the universe, gov-
erned by laws of its own that have no particular
connection with physical laws. Modern science
has proved that not only animals, but also plants,
receive impressions from the outside world and
use the data thus obtained to modify their move-
ments for their own advantage, exactly as human
beings do. These facts are told in this book in
so charming and entertaining a style that the
reader is carried along and does not realize until
later the revolutionary significance of the facts.

MEYER, DR. M. Wilhelm. The End of the
World. Translated by Margaret Wagner.
Cloth, illustrated, 50 cents.
This book answers in the light of the discov-
eries of modern science the questions frequently
asked as to the probable end of human life on
this planet. Moreover, it goes a step further in
making clear the relations of man's life to the
universe life. We have already seen that "mind"
is but another form of "life." Dr. Meyer shows
that not only animals and plants but even worlds
and suns have their birth, growth, maturity,
reproduction, decay and death, and that death is
but the preparation for a new cycle of life.

UNTERMANN, Ernest. Science and Revolu-
tion. Cloth, 194 pages, 50 cents.
A history of the evolution of the theory of
evolution, from the earliest scientific writings
that have been preserved, those of the Greek
philosophers, down to the present time. The

LATEST BOOKS

author shows how the ruling classes, living on
the labor of others, have always supported some
form of theolegy or mysticism, while the working
classes have developed the theory of evolution,
which is rounded out to its logical completion by
the work of Marx, Engels and Dietzgen. The
author frankly recognizes that no writer can
avoid being influenced by his class environment,
and he himself speaks distinctly as a proletarian
and a socialist. "Science and Revolution" is an
indispensable book, in that it makes clear the con-
clusions drawn by socialists from the facts of
science.

Other volumes in the Library of Science for
the Workers will be published in the near future ;
among them, "The Triumph of Life," by Wilhelm
Boelsche, "Life and Death," by Dr. E. Teichmann,
"The Making of the World," by Dr. M. Wilhelm
Meyer, and two volumes, including the philo-
sophical writings of Josef Dietzgen.

GLADYS, Evelyn. Thoughts of a Fool. A

book of revolutionary essays. Extra cloth,
$1.00.

A book which is clever and daring to a degree
is "Thoughts of a Fool," by Evelyn Gladys. It
abounds in paradoxes and scintillates with epi-
grams, and from cover to cover is interesting.
The writer is a cheerful iconoclast who heartily
enjoys overthrowing every conventional image
in sight, but back of her energetic tilts against
the established order of things is some very sound
reasoning and a singularly healthy point of view.
The reader will be either delighted or horribly
shocked with the book, according to his educa-
tion, temperament and preconceived notions of

LATEST BOOKS

life and behavior, but if he once begins it he is
likely to read it through. Furthermore, he will
not be apt to forget it, whether he agrees with
or condemns the honest and fearless assertions of
the writer. — The Craftsman.

VAIL, Rev. Charles H. Principles of Scientific
Socialism. Paper, 237 pages, 35 cents.

We have long felt the need of a book which
should give, within reasonable limits of space,
a systematic and, at the same time, a popular
presentation of modern Socialism for American
readers — a book which, while it could not pre-
tend to cover the whole field in all its details,
should set the main outlines of the subject clearly
before the reader and prepare him for further
study. This it has been Mr. Vail's purpose to do.
The book is far the best of its sort yet published.
It will be a means of making the Socialist position
intelligible to very many who do not yet under-
stand it; and many of our comrades will do well
to read it carefully, in order to gain the right
point of view, to meet common objections and put
their arguments into a form that will appeal to
the average man who is not already a student of
economic questions. — The Worker.

VAIL, Rev. Charles H. Modern Socialism.

Paper, 179 pages, 25 cents; cloth, 75 cents.

Scarcely any book has yet been presented so
copious in valuable quotations, so logical in its
deductions or more successful in clearness of ex-
pression. It is worthy the perusal of any one in-
terested in the social question, whether the per-
son be a Socialist or not. The exhibition of the
principles of Socialism and their result applied to
society is of a character to interest the opposer as

LATEST BOOKS

well as the supporter of the theory. Jt comes
with the unmistakable evidences of careful and
systematic preparation and is full of knowledge
for the student and interest for the general
reader. It has been unhesitatingly recommended
by the leaders of Socialist thought in America,
and as its increasing sales indicate has in it the
true value which is appropriated by all students
of sociology. The book is well printed and is
indexed in a convenient manner for easy refer-
ence.— The Class Struggle.

COLE, Josephine R. (Compiled.) Socialist
Songs, Dialogues and Recitations. Paper,
25 cents.

This book is issued in response to a constant
demand for something suitable to be used in
preparation for socialist entertainments. There
is a wide range of variety in the selections, but
they are nearly all suited to the comprehension of
children, and the book will therefore have a place
of its own in the literature of the movement.

SPARGO, John. Forces That Make for So-
cialism in America: A lecture at Cooper
Union, New York City. Paper, 10 cents.
This recent pamphlet by one of the most bril-
liant of our American socialist writers is an ap-
plication of the principles of socialism to the
facts of the day and hour here in the United
States. It is something that every socialist will
enjoy reading, while it is also an unusually effec-
tive argument to put into the hands of non-social-
ists.
SPARGO, John. A Socialist View of Mr.

Rockefeller. Paper, 5 cents.
An impartial study of the trust magnate in the
light of the socialist philosophy. "Mr Rockefeller

LATEST BOOKS

represents in his person, so to say, the transition
from competitive industry to monopoly. He per-
sonifies in a remarkable measure the greatest
economic problem of our time."

FERRI, Prof. Enrico (of the University of
Palermo, Italy.) Science and Life. Trans-
lated by Odon For. Paper, 5 cents.
A suggestive and inspiring lecture showing the
intimate connection between the socialist philoso-
phy and the recent developments of modern
science.

The International Socialist Review, edited
by A. M. Simons, and now in its sixth year,
is the one magazine needed by every
reader who wishes to know what socialism
is and what the socialists of the world are
thinking and doing. Sixty-four pages
monthly, one dollar a year, ten cents a copy.

CHARLES H. KERR
& COMPANY'S

CATALOGUE OF BOOKS

ALLEN, Henry E. A Study of Government.

Paper, 5 cents.

ALLMAN, James. God's Children: A Modern

Allegory. Cloth, 50 cents.

A clever and striking sketch, representing Mer-
cury, God's messenger, as bewildered, perplexed
and shocked at the condition of the people under
modern capitalism. The scene of his investiga-
tions is London. An excellent street speech by
a socialist is one of the chapters.

AVELING, Edward, D. Sc. The Student's
Marx: An Introduction to the Study of
Karl Marx's "Capital." Cloth, $1.00.

BADEN-POWELL, B. H. The Origin and

Growth of Village Communities in India.
Cloth, $1.00.

BALMFORTH, Ramsden. The New Refor-
mation, and Its Relation to Moral and So-
cial Problems. Cloth, $1.00.

7

CATALOGUE OF BOOKS

BAX, Ernest Belfort. The Religion of Social-
ism: Being Essays in Modern Socialist Crit-
icism. Cloth, $1.00.

The Ethics of Socialism: Being Further

Essays in Modern Socialist Criticism. Cloth,
$1.00.

Outlooks from the New Standpoint.

Cloth, $1.00.

The Story of the French Revolution.

Cloth, $1.00.

BECH-MEYER, Nico. A Story from Pull-

mantown. Cloth, 50 cents.
BELLAMY, Edward. Plutocracy or Nation-
alism, Which? (Pocket Library of Social-
ism, No. 18.) Paper, 5 cents.
BENNETT, J. W. A Breed of Barren Metal;
or, Currency and Interest. Cloth, 75 cents.
BERNSTEIN, Edward. Ferdinand Lassalle

as a Social Reformer. Cloth, $1.00.
B LATCH FORD, Robert. Britain for the Brit-
ish (America for the Americans.) Cloth, 50
cents.

This is the tenth volume of the Standard Social-
ist Series, and it is the most satisfactory and
scientific work by this popular author on the sub-
ject of socialism. It is at present published only
in cloth binding.

God and My Neighbor. Cloth, $1.00;

paper, 50 cents.

A book on Religion ffom the socialist point of
view. The author presents in exquisite literary

8

CATALOGUE OF BOOKS

form and with admirable good temper the numer-
ous objections to popular orthodox theology, and
outlines the new religion and the new ethics grad-
ually unfolding, based on a clearer understanding
of the universe and man's place in it.

Merrie England. Paper, 10 cents.

This has proved one of the most popular propa-
ganda works ever published, and while it cannot
be said to give an adequate presentation of social-
ism, it is still in active demand.

— Imprudent Marriages. (Pocket Library

of Socialism, No. 3). Paper, 5 cents.
BLISS, H. L. Plutocracy's Statistics: Statis-
tical Lies and Liars, Official and Unofficial.
Paper, 10 cents.
BISHOP, W. H. The Garden of Eden, U. S.

A. Paper, 50 cents.

A Utopian romance, not written from the social-
ist point of view, but containing some interesting
suggestions as to the details of economic and so-
cial life under collectivism.

BOELSCHE, Wilhelm. The Evolution of

Man. Translated by Ernest Untermann.

Cloth, illustrated, 50 cents.

Modern socialism is closely allied to the modern

scientific theory of evolution, and it is impossible

to understand it without some knowledge of that

theory. Now evolution is accepted as a working

basis in every university of Europe and America,

and no one with a scientific education wastes time

in questioning it. Nevertheless, there has until now

been no popular explanation of the evolution of

man in simple form at a low price. There is a

very good reason for this. If laborers understand

CATALOGUE OF BOOKS

science, they become socialists, and the capitalists
who control most publishing houses naturally do
not want them to understand it.

"The Evolution of Man" tells in full detail, in a
clear, simple style, illustrated by pictures, just how
the descent of man can be traced back through
monkeys, marsupials, amphibians, fishes, worms
and lower forms of life, down to the animals com-
posed each of a single cell. Moreover, it proves
that there is no such fixed line as was formerly
thought to exist between the organic and the inor-
ganic, but that the same life-force molds the crys-
tal that molds the cell. It is not only simple ; it is
up to date and gives the latest discoveries in
science. It is the book on the subject.

BRENHOLTZ, Edwin Arnold, The Record-
ing Angel. Cloth, $1.00.

An intense, dramatic story of the class struggle
between labor and capital in America. It deals
with a great strike by the workmen of the steel
trust. The president of the trust thinks it neces-
sary to have the leader of the strikers "removed,"
and the "Recording Angel" is a machine used at
the proper moment to record the private conversa-
tion between the president and his attorney in
which the details of the "removal" are planned.

There is socialism in the story, but not in the

shape of large chunks of argument. The book

is a graphic picture of our capitalist society, "ripe

and rotten-ripe for change." It has a plot that

will hold the attention of the careless reader, and

an artistic style that will challenge the admiration

of the most competent critic.

BROOME, Isaac. The Last Days of the Rus-

kin Co-operative Association. (Standard

Socialist Series, No. 4.) Cloth, 50 cents.

Socialism does not mean withdrawing from the

10

CATALOGUE OF BOOKS

class struggle and trying to set up a paradise on a
small scale. If there are those who still think
such a scheme practicable, they will find interest-
ing facts in this book.
BROWN, John. Parasitic Wealth; Or, Money

Reform. Cloth, $1.00.

BROWN, William Thurston. After Capital-
ism, What? (Pocket Library of Socialism,
No. 12.) Paper, 5 cents.

The Real Religion of Today. (Pocket

Library of Socialism, No. 19.) Paper, 5 cents.

The Axe at the Root. (Pocket Library

of Socialism, No. 23.) Paper, 5 cents.

The Relation of Religion to Social Eth-
ics. (Pocket Library of Socialism, No. 27.)
Paper, 5 cents.

BURROWES, Peter E. Revolutionary Essays

in Socialist Faith and Fancy. Cloth, $1.25.
CAPITALIST'S Union or Labor Unions,

Which? (Pocket Library of Socialism, No.

40.) Paper, 5 cents.
CARPENTER, Edward. Civilization, Its

Cause and Cure. Cloth, $1.00.

England's Ideal, and Other Papers on

Social Subjects. Cloth, $1.00.

Love's Coming-of-Age. Cloth, $1.00.

The problem of the relation of the sexes is too

subtle for a writer who is merely a scientist ; he
must be a poet as well or he will be incapable of
observing the facts with which his science must
deal. On the other hand, if he is merely a poet,
he will be unable to make intelligent use of the
facts he has grasped, and he will fail to point the

11

CATALOGUE OF BOOKS

way to any new truth. Edward Carpenter has the
rare merit of being a poet and man of science in
one. He faces bravely the questions that prudes
of both sexes shrink from, and he offers a solu-
tion that deserves the attention of the ablest lead-
ers of popular thought, while his charmingly sim-
ple style makes the book easy reading for any one
who is looking for new light on the present and
the future of men and women in their relations to
each other.

Towards Democracy. Latest complete

edition, including Part IV., "Who Shall Com-
mand the Heart?" Cloth, octavo, gilt top, 517
pages, $2.50.

CHASE, Charles H. Elementary Principles
of Economics. Cloth, $1.25.

CLINE, Charles E. The Socialist Catechism.
(Pocket Library of Socialism, No. 41.)
Paper, 5 cents.

COLSON, Ethel Maude. .The Story of a
Dream. Cloth, $1.00.

COREY, W. A. How I Acquired My Millions.
By a Big Capitalist. (Pocket Library of
Socialism, No. 15.) Paper, 5 cents.

CROSBY, Ernest. The Land of the Noonday
Night. Song with music by Eleanor Smith.
Sheet music form, 30 cents.

DAGUE, R. A. Henry Ashton, a Novel. Cloth,
75 cents.

DARROW, Clarence S. Crime and Criminals.

Paper, 10 cents.

This is an address delivered before the pris-
oners in the county jail at Chicago. It tells the

12

CATALOGUE OF BOOKS

truth about the real causes of what is called crime
in a way that is startling to those unfamiliar with
the principles of socialism.

In Memory of John P. Altgeld. Paper,

5 cents,

The Rights and Wrongs of Ireland.

Paper, 10 cents.

Realism in Literature and Art. (Pocket

Library of Socialism, No. 5.) Paper, 5
cents.

Resist Not Evil. Cloth, 75 cents.

DAWSON, William Harbutt. Bismarck and

State Socialism: An Exposition of the So-
cial and Economic Legislation of Germany
since 1870. Cloth, $1.00.

German Socialism and Ferdinand Las-

salle. Cloth, $1.00.

DEL MAR, Alexander. A History of Mone-
tary Systems. Cloth, $2.00.

EDMISTON, Henry M. Rhymes for the
Times. Cloth, $1.00.

ENGELS, Frederick. The Condition of the
Working-Class in England in 1844. With
Preface written in 1892. Translated by
Florence Kelley Wischnewtzsky. Cloth,
$1.25.

Feuerbach: The Roots of the Socialist

Philosophy. Translated by Austin Lewis.
(Standard Socialist Series, No. 8.) Cloth,
50 cents.

This book is a criticism on the works of a for-
gotten philosopher, but it is still of timely inter*

13

CATALOGUE OF BOOKS

est, since attempts are still being made to rein-
troduce dualist notions into the philosophy of so-
cialism. Austin Lewis contributes an interest-
ing historical introduction.

The Origin of the Family, Private Prop-
erty and the State. Translated by Ernest
Untermann. (Standard Socialist Series,
No. 5.) Cloth, 50 cents.

This is one of the most important of the author's
works, and although first published in 1884, was
never accessible to English readers until our trans-
lation appeared in 1502. It contains practically
everything necessary to the general reader in the
voluminous work of Morgan, and it furthermore
gives many additional facts and a coherent, scien-
tific treatment of the whole subject. The book is
of great propaganda value, in that it shows the
folly of the popular idea that wealth and poverty
always have existed and so may always be ex-
pected to continue.

Socialism, Utopian and Scientific.

Translated by Edward Aveling. D. Sc.
(Standard Socialist Series, No. 7.) Cloth,
50 cents; also in paper at 10 cents.

This book ranks next to the Communist Mani-
festo as one of the best short statements in any
language of the fundamental principles of social-
ism. It is an essential part of every socialist
library, however small.

FEARING, Blanche. Roberta, A Novel of Chi-
cago. Cloth, $1.00.

The author is not a socialist, but the story is a
suggestive picture of the social contrasts in the
"wicked city."

14

CATALOGUE OF BOOKS

FLINT, Sam. On the Road to the Lake. A

Novel. Cloth, $1.00.

The lake referred to is the one composed of fire
and brimstone. The story is a rather heated at-
tack upon the contrasts between the nominal and
the actual ethics of capitalism. It is illustrated
with numerous engravings from original wash
drawings.

FOX, William R. By the Throat the Trusts
Have Seized the Farmer. (Madden Libra-
ry, No. 6.) Paper, 2 cents.
FRANKLIN, Charles Kendall. The Sociali-
zation of Humanity. Cloth, $2.00.
The Craftsman says : "The volume abounds in
definitions making it extremely easy to follow the
thought. However one may look upon its conclu-
sions, it must be admitted that they are logical
and fearlessly reached." The Boston Transcript
says : "This is the first materialism which has
faced the religious emotion, accepted it as a verit-
able power, and applied it to the welfare of the
race. The chapter on The Supreme Law of Eth-
ics' is a valuable addition to modern thought. As
a philosopher, Mr. Franklin is practical, as a so-
cialist he is philosophical. It is the first time phi-
losophy and socialism have joined hands."

GENONE, Hudor. The Last Tenet Imposed
Upon the Khan of Thomatoz. Cloth, $1.00.
A remarkably clever and laughable story satir-
izing the orthodox theology. Illustrated with
original drawings.
GOODE, James Bryan. The Modern Banker.

Paper, 25 cents.

This is an entertaining novel, written by a Mis-
souri man in 1896, which has a distinct historical

15

CATALOGUE OF BOOKS

value in showing the way in which the small farm-
ers and traders at that time regarded the bankers.

GORDON, F. G. R. Government Ownership

of Railways. Paper, 5 cents.
HALPHIDE, Dr. A. C. Mind and Body: Sug-
gestion and Hypnotism Applied in Medi-
cine and Education. Cloth, $1.00.

The Psychic and Psychism. Cloth, $1.00.

We commend these books by Dr. Halphide
as sane, scientific statements of fact from the
evolutionary point of view on subjects that in
most popular treatises are buried under a
cheap mysticism. "Mind and Body" gives a
clearer explanation of the process of "hyp-
notizing" than the courses of instruction for
which large sums are charged, and "The
Psychic and Psychism" tells of the phenomena
of mind-reading, clairvoyance and telepathy.

HANCOCK, Anson Uriel. John Auburntop,
Novelist. A Novel. Cloth, $1.00.

HANSEN, George P. The Legend of Hamlet.

Cloth, 50 cents.
A historical study of the original sources from

which the material used in Shakespeare's tragedy

was derived.

HERRON, George D. The Day of Judgment.

Paper, 10 cents.
Why I am a Socialist. (Pocket Library

of Socialism, No. 20.) Paper, 5 cents.
HILL, Thomas E. Money Found. Leather,

$1.00; cloth, 75 cents; paper, 25 cents.
A plea for government banks, written in
1893, from the Populist point of view. It con-

16

CATALOGUE OF BOOKS

tains, however, much condensed information
of value, and some instructve suggestions as to
possible banking methods for the period of
transition from capitalism to collectivism.

HINDS, William Alfred, Ph. B. American
Communities. Revised edition, enlarged
to include additional societies, new and old,
communistic, semi-communistic and co-op-
erative. Cloth, $1.00.

HITCHCOCK, Charles C. Objectors to So-
cialism Answered. Paper, 5 cents.
INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW.
Edited by A. M. Simons. Monthly, 64
pages, $1.00 a year; 10 cents a copy. No
discount to stockholders on either sub-
scriptions or single copies.
The International Socialist Review is the one
recognized medium of communication between
the Socialist thinkers of all countries. Its
articles are simply indispensable to any one de-
siring to keep in touch with Socialist thought
from month to month.

INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW,
Volume I, 1900-1901. Cloth, $5.00 if sold
separately, $2.00 if sold in a set with the
other volumes, subject to stockholders'
discount.

Volume II, 1901-1902. Cloth, $2.00.

Volume III, 1902-1903. Cloth, $2.00.

Volume IV, 1903-1904. Cloth, $2.00.

A bound volume of the International Social-
ist Review is the complete history of the So-
cialist movement of the world for that year,

17

CATALOGUE OF BOOKS

and a complete set of the Review is simply in-
dispensable to any one seeking a thorough
knowledge of the movement. As the supply of
the first volume is nearly exhausted, we have
raised its price when sold separately, in order
to furnish as many complete sets as possible.

JOHNSON,, Samuel. Theodore Parker, a Lec-
ture. Cloth, $1.00.
JUSTICE, Alfred R. An Equitable Exchange

System. Cloth, 40 cents.
From this little book a more satisfactory idea
can be obtained of the main principles of eco-
nomics than by wading through most of the
ponderous text-books which have been written
on the subject. Wages, Profits, Interest, Rent,
Overproduction, Money and Value are among
the topics here treated in a clear, simple man-
ner.

KAUTSKY, Karl. The Social Revolution.

Translated by A. M. and May Wood Si-
mons. (Standard Socialist Series, No. 6.)
Cloth, 50 cents.

Kautsky is the editor of the Neue Zeit, and is
universally recognized as one of the ablest so-
cialist writers and thinkers in Europe. This
book is in two parts. Part I, Reform and Rev-
olution, explains the essential difference be-
tween the Socialist party and all reform par-
ties. Part II, The Day After the Revolution,
gives straightforward answers to the questions
so often asked about what the socialists would
do if entrusted with the powers of government.

Frederick Engels, His Life, His Work

and His Writings. Translated by May
Wood Simons. Paper, 10 cents.

18

CATALOGUE OF BOOKS

KERR, Charles H. Morals and Socialism.

(Pocket Library of Socialism, No. 10.) Pa-
per, 5 cents.

The Folly of Being "Good." (Pocket

Library of Socialism No. 25.) Paper, 5
cents.

• (compiler) Socialist Songs with Music.

Paper, 20 cents.

This is the only collection of songs with
music published in the United States, which
represents the spirit of the international so-
cialist movement. It contains thirty-six songs,
many of them set to familiar music, and it is
the book that is actually used in the meetings
of the socialist locals.

Socialist Songs. (Pocket Library of So-
cialism, No. 11.) Paper, 5 cents.
This book contains the words of all but the
last seven songs in the book just described, and
the two can be used together at meetings
where a sufficient supply of the edition with
music is not available.

KELLEY, J. W. Industrial Democracy.

(Pocket Library of Socialism, No. 32.)

Paper, 5 cents.
KING, Murray E. Socialism and Human

Nature; Do They Conflict? Paper, 10

cents.
KJELLAND, Alexander. Elsie, a Christmas

Story. Boards, 50 cents.
KROPOTKIN, Peter. An Appeal to the

Young. (Pocket Library of Socialism,

No. 36.) 5 cents.

19

CATALOGUE OF BOOKS

LABRIOLA, Antonio. Essays on the Ma-
terialistic Conception of History. Trans-
lated by Charles H. Kerr. Cloth, $1.00.

The fundamental principle of socialism, an
understanding of which is absolutely essential
to clear thinking, is the theory of historical ma-
terialism, or the materialistic conception of his-
tory. The theory is briefly outlined in the
introduction to the Communist Manifesto and
in Engels' Socialism Utopian and Scientific,
but it is first adequately developed in this work
of Labriola.

LADOFF, Isador. American Pauperism and
the Abolition of Poverty. (Standard So-
cialist Series, No. 9.) Cloth, 50 cents.
A study of the last United States census,
bringing out in bold relief the social contrasts
that are purposely left obscure in the official
documents. An arsenal of facts for socialist
writers and speakers.

The Passing of Capitalism. Cloth, 50

cents.

LAFARGUE, Paul. The Evolution of Prop-
erty from Savagery to Civilization. Cloth,
$1.00.

The Sale of an Appetite. Translated by

Charles H. Kerr; Illustrated by Dorothy
Deene. Cloth, 50 cents.
A striking and original story of a hungry
man who sold his appetite to a capitalist, and
afterwards regretted his bargain. It has an
obvious moral for the laborers who have to live
by selling their various functions of body and
mind.

20

CATALOGUE OF BOOKS

Socialism and the Intellectuals. Trans-
lated by Charles H. Kerr. Paper, 5 cents.
LEFFINGWELL, W. H. Easy Lessons in
Socialism. (Pocket Library of Socialism,
No. 38.) Paper, 5 cents.
LEWIS, Eugene C. A History of the Ameri-
can Tariff. Cloth, 75 cents.
LIEBKNECHT, Wilhelm. Biographical Me-
moirs of Karl Marx. Translated by Ernest
Untermann. (Standard Socialist Series,
No. 1.) Cloth, SO cents.

This personal biography of Marx, by an inti-
mate friend who was himself one of the fore-
most socialists of Germany, gives a new insight
into the beginnings of socialism. Moreover it
is a charming book, as interesting as a novel,
and will make an admirable introduction to
heavier reading on socialism.

Socialism, What It Is and What It Seeks

to Accomplish. Translated by May Wood
Simons. Paper, 10 cents.

No Compromise, No Political Trading.

Translated by A. M. Simons and Marcus
Hitch. Paper, 10 cents.

LONDON, Jack. The Scab. (Pocket Lis
brary of Socialism, No. 44.) Paper, 5
cents.
LORI A, Achilla. The Economic Foundations

of Society. Cloth, $1.25.

LYNCH, Daniel, and HAYES, Max S. So-
cialism and Trade Unionism. (Pocket Li-
brary of Socialism, No. 17.) Paper, 5
cents.

21

CATALOGUE OF BOOKS

"MABEL." A Soul's Love Letter. Cloth,

$1.00.

The Boston Transcript says: "There is a
striking and compelling quality about the writ-
ing of this unknown author which leads the
reader to finish her book at a sitting. Prob-
ably it is the transparent truth and candor of
the narration that hold the attention so mas-

tierfully Perhaps its very charm

lies in the unconventional freedom with which
the mixed motives permeating every human ac-
tion are confessed."
MACHINIST, A Black-listed. Capital and

Labor. Paper, 25 cents.

This is an excellent propaganda work ad-
dressed to union laborers, and making clear the
need of united political action of the working
class through the Socialist party.
MACKAY, H. W. Boyd. A Sketch of Social
Evolution. (Pocket Library of Socialism,
No. 30.) Paper, 5 cents.

MARSHALL, Perry. Launching and Land-
ing. (Poems.) Cloth, $1.00.
MARTIN, Kate Byam, and HENROTIN, El-
len M. The Social Status of European
and American Women. Cloth, 50 cents.
The two essays included in this volume were
written in 1886, and are from the bourgeois
point of view.

MARX, Karl. Capital: A Critical Analysis
of Capitalist Production. Translated from
the third German edition by Samuel Moore
and Edward Aveling, and edited by Fred-
erick Engels. Cloth, $2.00.

22

CATALOGUE OF BOOKS

This is the standard English edition, the
proofs of which were corrected by Frederick
Engels, and it is absolutely complete in so far
as the work of Marx has been translated into
English. It contains, however, only the matter
included in the first of the four German vol-
umes. Ernest Untermann is now engaged in
translating the remaining volumes, and we
hope to publish them in 1907.

Nothing need be said regarding the impor-
tance of this work of Marx. It is simply indis-
pensable to any student desirng to master the
economic side of the socialist philosophy.

Revolution and Counter-Revolution, or
Germany in 1848. Cloth, $1.00.
Wage-Labor and Capital. (Pocket Li-
brary of Socialism, No. 7.) Paper, 5
cents.

MARX, Karl, and ENGELS, Frederick. Man-
ifesto of the Communist Party. Cloth, SO
cents; paper, 10 cents.

This manifesto, first published in 1848, is still
recognized the world over as the clearest state-
ment of the principles of the international So-
cialist party. It has been translated into the
language of every country where capitalism ex-
ists, and it is being circulated more rapidly to-
day than ever before.

MASSART, Jean, and VANDERVELDE,
Emile. Parasitism, Organic and Social.
Cloth, $1.00.

MATTHEW'S Gospel in Greek, with Voca-
bulary. Edited by Alexander Kerr and
Herbert Gushing Tolman. Paper, 50
cents.

23

CATALOGUE OF BOOKS

MAYNARD, Mila Tupper. Walt Whitman,
the Poet of the Wider Selfhood. Cloth,
$1.00.

Contents: A Glimpse of the Man; the Copi-
ous Personal Self; the Cosmic Self; the Eter-
nal Self; "Even These Least"; the Larger Wo-
man; the Larger Man; Youth, Maturity, Age;
Unity with Nature; Democracy; America;
Comradeship. This book is a valuable intro-
duction and companion to Whitman's Poems.

MILLS, Walter Thomas. Evolutionary Poli-
tics. Cloth, $1.00.
How to Work for Socialism. (Pocket

Library of Socialism, No. 22.) Paper, 5

cents.
MILLER, George McA. Uncle Ike's Idees.

(Dialect verses on social topics.) Paper,

10 cents.
MORMAN, James Bale. The Principles of

Social Progress. A Study of Civilization.

Cloth, 50 cents.
MORRIS, William, and BAX, Ernest Belfort.

Socialism, Its Growth and Outcome.

Cloth, $1.25.
NEWSPAPER Man, A. Man or Dollar,

Which? A Novel. Paper, 25 cents.
This is a picture of the future collectivist so-
ciety in the form of a story. It contains much
that is interesting and suggestive, but the
author is not familiar with the literature of in-
ternational socialism, and has introduced into
his Utopia an amount of interference with pri-

24

CATALOGUE OF BOOKS

vate affairs on the part o( society which is
quite in contradiction with the program of so-
cialists.

NOYES, William H. The Evolution of the
Class Struggle. (Pocket Library of So-
cialism, No. 2.) Paper, 5 cents.

PARKYN, Herbert A., M. D. Hypnotism as
a Remedy for Mental Troubles. Paper, 10

cents.

PARSONS, Frank. The Drift of Our Time.

Paper, 10 cents.

PERSINGER, Clark Edmund. Letters from
New America; or, An Attempt at Practical
Socialism. Cloth, 50 cents; paper, 25
cents.

PLATO. The Republic. Translated by Al-
exander Kerr. Books I, II, II and IV.
now ready; others in preparation. Each
book sold separately. Paper, 15 cents; the
set, 60 cents.

The Republic of Plato, written in the fourth
century before the Christian era, is the first and
the greatest of the many attempts to make so-
ciety over on an ideal basis. In Plato's work
most of the so-called original ideas of modern
reformers can be found, far more artistically
stated. The work is in the form of a dialog,
in which the leading part is taken by Socrates.
The present translation is at once closer to the
original and easier to understand than previous
versions.

25

CATALOGUE OF BOOKS

PLUMMER, Frank Everett. Gracia, a Social
Tragedy. Cloth, gilt top, illustrated with
twelve half-tone engravings, $1.25.
A story in blank verse, dramatic and intense.

Has run through three editions and is still in

active demand.

Was It Gracia's Fault? Paper, 10 cents-

A booklet summarizing the plot of "Gracia,"
with a discussion by various writers of the so-
cial questions involved. The closing pages are
by Charles H. Kerr, and set forth the socialist
view.

POOLE, Ernest. Katharine Breshkovsky:

For Russia's Freedom. Paper, 10 cents.
A graphic and thrilling account of Madame
Breshkovsky's personal experiences in the revolu-
tionary movement of Russia.

QUINN, C. F. Under the Lash. A Drama.

Paper, 25 cents.

This play is adapted to the use of amateurs,
and has been successfully put on the stage in
Chicago. It deals with a strike of coal miners.

RAYMOND, Walter Marion. Rebels of the
New South. A Novel, with illustrations
by Percy Bertram Ball. Cloth, $1.00.

With Whitman-like disregard for convention-
ality the author strips his characters of all that is
artificial, and the story is about souls — human
souls that appeal irresistably to the democratic
spirit. Every literature-loving socialist will like
it. — Appeal to Reason.

There is a delicious Southern flavor throughout
the story. It is a socialist book, though it has

26

CATALOGUE OF BOOKS

little to say about socialism directly. It is the
spirit, the atmosphere of the book, the feeling
that if such people are socialists the cause must
be divine — which makes it a power against the
most despicable slanders ever uttered against so-
cialism.— The Christian Socialist.

REED, Dr. C. H. Civic Evils: An Analysis

of Civilization's Problem. (Pocket Library

of Socialism, No. 42.) Paper, 5 cents.
RICHARDS, Lydia Platt. Ahead of the

Hounds; a Novel. Cloth, $1.00; paper, 50

cents.

ROBERTS, Evelyn Harvey. The Pure Cause-
way. Cloth, $1.00; paper, 50 cents.
ROBERTUS, Karl. Over-Production and

Crises. Cloth, $1.00.
ROGERS, James E. Thorold. Work and

Wages. Cloth, $1.00.
ROSENBERG, Louis J. Mazzini, a Prophet of

the Religion of Humanity. Cloth, 50

cents.

A biographical sketch, with which are printed
Mazzini's oration "To the Young Men. of
Italy" and a bibliography of his chief writings.
SCHAEFFLE, Dr. A. The Quintessence of

Socialism. Cloth, $1.00.
SHELDON, Rev. Stuart. The Root of All

Kinds of Evil. Paper, 10 cents.
SIMONS, A. M. The American Farmer.

(Standard Socialist Series, No. 3.) Cloth,

50 cents.
"The American Farmer," in spite of its small

27

CATALOGUE OF BOOKS

size, is the largest contribution yet given to the
agrarian literature of this country. The author,
besides being a student of American social condi-
tions, is thoroughly conversant with practical
farming, and there is little doubt that the farmer
who reads the work will have to admit that the
conclusions are based on a real understanding of
the difficulties of his struggle with the soil, with
railroads, trusts and foreign competitors, — Chi-
cago Tribune.

Class Struggles in America. Paper, 10

cents.

The Economic Foundation of Art. Pa-
per, 5 cents.

, Packingtown. (Pocket Library of So-
cialism, No. 4.) Paper, 5 cents.
Single Tax vs. Socialism. (Pocket Li-
brary of Socialism, No. 6.) Paper, 5 cents.

The Man Under the Machine. (Pocket

Library of Socialism, No. 8.) Paper, 5
cents.

Socialism and Farmers. (Pocket Li-
brary of Socialism, No. 14.) Paper, 5
cents.

What the Socialists Would Do if They

Won in This City. (Pocket Library of
Socialism, No. 24.) Paper, 5 cents.

Socialism vs. Anarchy. (Pocket Library

of Socialism, No. 31.) Paper, 5 cents.

The Philosophy of Socialism. (Pocket

Library of Socialism, No. 35.) Paper, 5
cents.

What Is a Scab? (Madden Library,

No. 1.) Paper, 2 cents.

28

CATALOGUE OF BOOKS

The Class Struggle. (Madden Library,

No. 2.) Paper, 2 cents.

SIMONS, May Wood. Woman and the Social
Problem. (Pocket Library of Socialism,
No. 1.) Paper, 5 cents.

Socialism and the Organized Labor
Movement. (Pocket Library of Socialism,
No. 39.) Paper, 5 cents.

SOCIALISM VS. SINGLE TAX. A Debate.

Paper, 25 cents.

This is a verbatim report of a debate held at
Twelfth Street Turner Hall, Chicago, December
20, 1903. The speakers on the side of Single Tax
were Louis F. Post, Henry H. Hardinge and
John Z. White; on the side of Socialism Ernest
Untermann, Seymour Stedman and A. M. Si-
mons. The book contains the portraits of Karl
Marx, Henry George and the six debaters.

SOCIALIST CAMPAIGN BOOK. Edited
under the supervision of the National Cam-
paign Committee of the party. Paper, 25
cents.

SOCIALIST Party, The. Platform, Constitu-
tion, etc. (Pocket Library of Socialism,
No. 33.) Paper, 5 cents.

SOCIALISTS in French Municipalities. Trans-
lations from official reports. (Pocket Li-
brary of Socialism, No. 16.) Paper, 5 cents.

SOMBART, Prof. Werner. Socialism and the
Social Movement in the Nineteenth Cen-
tury. Cloth, $1.00.

29

CATALOGUE OF BOOKS

SULLIVAN, J. W. So the World Goes.

Cloth, 75 cents.

A collection of twenty short stories pictur-
ing social conditions under capitalism. The
author's spectacles are of the single tax variety.
The stories are notably clever and entertain-
ing.

TWINING, T. Intemperance and Poverty.

(Pocket Library of Socialism, No. 26.)

Paper, 5 cents.
VAIL, Charles H. The Socialist Movement.

Paper, 10 cents.

The Mission of the Working Class.

(Pocket Library of Socialism, No. 9.) Pa-
per, 5 cents.

The Trust Question. (Pocket Library

of Socialism, No. 21.) Paper, 5 cents.
VANDERVELDE, Emile. Collectivism and
Industrial Evolution. Translated by
Charles H. Kerr. (Standard Socialist
Series, No. 2.) Cloth, 50 cents.
The author is a socialist member of the Bel-
gian Parliament and is one of the ablest writers
in the international socialist movement. This
book is on the whole the most satisfactory brief
summary of the principles of socialism that has
yet been written. One distinctive feature of it is
that it takes up the difficult questions of how the
machinery of production could be acquired and
how wages could be adjusted under a socialist
administration.

WATERS, Robert. The Career and Conver-
sation of John Swinton. Paper, 25 cents.

30

CATALOGUE OF BOOKS

WEBSTER, Rev. Robert M. The Kingdom
of Gcd and Socialism. (Pocket Library
of Socialism, No. 37.) Paper, 5 cents.
WELCOME, S. Byron. From Earth's Center.

Paper, 25 cents.

A Utopian story picturing a society organized
under the "Single Tax." It was published shortly
before the death of Henry George, and re-
ceived his personal endorsement.
WENTWORTH, Franklin H. The Pride of
Intellect. (Pocket Library of Socialism,
No. 34.) Paper, 5 cents.
WHITMAN, Walt. Poems ("Leaves of

Grass.") Cloth, 75 cents.
Although Whitman wrote before the day of an
American socialist movement, his poems are
filled through and through with the spirit of mod-
ern socialism. Our edition contains a biographical
sketch by John Burroughs, and an excellent por-
trait of Whitman.

WILSHIRE, H. Gaylord. Trusts and Imperi-
alism. (Pocket Library of Socialism, No.
29.) Paper, 5 cents.

Why a Workingman Should Be a So-
cialist. (Madden Library, No. 4.) Paper,
2 cents.
WOOLDRIDGE, C. W., M. D. The Kingdom

of Heaven is at Hand. Paper, 10 cents.
YOUNG, Walter L. Rational Prohibition.
(Pocket Library of Socialism, No. 13.)
Paper, 5 cents .

31

FOURTEEN DAY USE

RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED

This book is due on the last date stamped below, or

on the date to which renewed.
Renewed books are subject to immediate recall.

I