Evolution and the Darwinian theory of human descent viewed from the standpoint of a multiple primate ancestry / Charles K. Mills, M.D., LL.D., Philadelphia.

  • Mills, Charles K. (Charles Karsner), 1845-1931
Date:
[1928]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Evolution and the Darwinian theory of human descent viewed from the standpoint of a multiple primate ancestry / Charles K. Mills, M.D., LL.D., Philadelphia. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    primates most nearly approaching man in stature and other physical conditions passed into a period of primate dark ages. The gorilla, for instance, is found today in largest numbers near the western coast of the mid-African region and in the Kivu plateau region of the interior. Here he roams unmolested over a region a hun¬ dred or more miles in extent, at odds with the dwarf-men who are his most immediate neighbors. As far as can be determined, his age of darkness is increasing rather than diminishing. After all, however, sup¬ posing the truths to be as just surmised, the facts are not a valid objection to man having reached his human estate by way of the higher primates. The history of man’s progress has afforded well known illustrations of his tendency to relapse into comparative barbarism for a time, this to be succeeded by a renaissance and further advances toward a more per¬ fect state. I believe with Tilney, as regards the human brain, that man is only in a certain stage in the upward process of development. It may perhaps be futile or foolish to theorize on the method by which the transition from the primate to prehistoric man took place, and yet such speculation has its attractions and may not be without value in the consideration of the question of the descent of man. The first steps taken in primate development of man from the lower animals were probably shown in the use of language and of the limbs. With respect to the latter, it may be said that the anthropoid or intermediate primate began to use the terrain, and found he could do this best by employing his hind limbs for station and progression and his fore limbs for prehen¬ sion and combat. It must be remembered that only a portion of the intermediate and higher primates separated themselves from the general stock and came to play a higher role. With regard to the linguistic phase of evolution, the first step in the prehistoric development was the use of language, largely emotional or instinctive, just as in the human being of today emotional and instinctive speech is the first to come as it is the last to go. The primate parents made use of certain sounds to call to their children, and the latter sought out their parents by the use of similar sounds. Feeling of fear and hate, on the one hand, and of satisfaction or joy, on the other, resulted in an ejaculatory or interjectional speech. Such emotional language became more or less fixed for the same animal group, and thus language was started. Later in the history of the advancing primate, reason began to play its linguistic part. The animal recalled the sounds made by its foes or by destructive agencies like the wind and flood, and in imitation and in response made use of sounds which became additions to the language. Words at first merely represented the concrete: rock, trees, birds of the air, beasts of the field, sun, moon and stars. Later, other sounds became necessary to express actions of the things seen and heard; thus,