EVOLUTION OF MAN.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1768, 5 June 1913, Page 6

EVOLUTION OF MAN.

A ROMANCE OF SCIENCE. LECTURE BY MR. JOS. M'CABE. In tho Concert Chamber of tho Town Hall last evening, Mr. Joseph M'Gabe lectured upon the evolution of mgh, an old theme, as-..he remarked, but one of perennial interest. Mr. M'Cabs told tlio story with his accustomed grace and vigour of language, ami the lecture, like those which have preceded it, was illustrated wiili a sea'ies of lantern slides. In his lecture, Mr. M'Cabs traced tho rise of man from the beginning of his career to the dawn of civilisation. At the outset ho claimed that those who upheld the theory of , evolution were upon very sure ground. The oxistence of man was to bs explained in no other way. "We are not supposing that something took place fn former times which is rot taking place to-day," said the lecturer. "We aro only supposing a far slower development." Twa or three thousand years ago, ho continued, our ancestors were barbarians. Twenty thousand years ago tliey were no doubt something far lower than barbarians. Scientific man to-day wero in a position lo positively affirm that man had inhabited tho earth for 200,000 years; somo of the greatest authorities in Europe said 700,000 years. The leal problem was . not to explain how man had developed, but to explain why lia had lingered so long on the threshold of development.

Mr. M'Cabo went on to explain that proofs of man's evolutionary development ware to be found first of all in the human itself, which contained organs and ofner features no Jonger useful but dating back to a time •when man's ancestors belonged to a place much lower in the scale of life. Another striking piece of evidence cited depends for its value upon the fact, established by exhaustive experiments, that the blood of one animal has no poisonous effect when mingled with that of aaiother nearly-re-lated animal, whereas it has a poisonous effect upon the blood of an animal distantly related. .The blood of man. said the lecturer, had no poisonous effect upon that of the higher apes, nor had the blood of the higher apes any poisonous effect upon that of, man. ' From tliis it was deduced that man and ape were blood relations, springing from a common stock, perhaps half a million years ago. After further detailing the evidence in support of tho evolutionary theory, Mr. M'Cabo went on to state that a m'llion or a million and a half years ago apelike animals had come to be the highest typo of animals in tho world. Their evolution was stimulated, on the one iiand by tho development of trees bearing nuts and other nutritious food, and on the other by the appearance of great carnivorous animals, whose presence impelled creatures less fierce to take to. life in the trees. One branch of the ape-l'ke family had subsequently left the trees, and taken to living on the ground again. It Y?as this branch which had left its fellows far behind, and had ultimately developed the intelligence of man. During the whole of the million years which had witnessed tho development of man, the ape had made no progress whatever. The chimpanzee, tho orang, and the gorilla wero not in the line of man's a"cestry. They were very distantly-related cousins. The brain of the horse was nearly six times as good to-day as that off the horse of a million years ago, but the ape appeared to have nnulo no progress at all. The very fact that the ancestors ot man left the trees and took to'living upon the ground explained the advance of the human being as compared with tho ape. Life on the ground necessitated true and varied use of the arms. This induced the development of a true hand, and stimulated development of the brain, and of the intelligence. The Inst great rise of prehistoric man was hastened by the coming of an ice-age, which compelled him to engage in combat .with the cave-bear and other animals,-in order to obtain shelter, and, eventually, by bringing aixmt tho grouping of families, and in other ways, stimulated language, invention, tho manufacture of weapons, and even tho dawn of art which was represented in these early ages by rudo di arcings made with flints upon reindeer bones and upon cavern walls. . To-night Mr. M'Cabo will take as the subject of his lecture, '"Life-m Other Worlds."