"GOD-LIKE" MAN

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 207, 26 April 1932, Page 2

"GOD-LIKE" MAN

UPRIGHT WALKING POSITION GAVE POWEK OF BltAIN AND SPEECH. A DOCTOR'S OPINION. LONDON. Through his decision to walk upright on two legs man got his power of speech, his transcendexital hrain, and his sense of beauty, particularly female beauty. Dr. Leonard Williams, medical officer to the Insurance Institute of London, advanced this theory when he read a paper on "Man's Atavistic Tendencies" hefore the institute at Cordwainers' Hall. ''If man had remained a quadruped," stated Dr. Willliams, "he would not have been able to develop his central nervous system, which is the seat of sueh god-like qualities as he may jttstly claim to possess." Dr. Williams went on to explain that nothing is so characteristic of premature ageing as a progessive stiffening in the neck and the small of the back. "The man of fifty who moves his head and shoulders in one piece is on the down grade, physically and mentally. He ahounds in so-called learned societies, especially when they are medical or clerical — less often when thOy are legal. ' "A peculiar forward rigidity of the head and neck (called a 'poke') was, in my young days, regarded as a mark of speeial sanctity. Dr. Pusey, one of the principal leaders of the Oxford Movement, had this 'poke' by nature, and his younger disciples adopted it. It probably shortened their lives, and narrowed their outlook and clouded their understanding.

Signs of BegeneraDon. "Do nothing to imperil the drainage upon which so much depends. At the moment the commonest way of impairing that drainage is by a tight ' collar. ! "A person with a bovine eye or an equine tends to resemble the respective animals not only in eharacter and intell gence, but also in digestive capacity, so that the person with widely separate eyes ought to be vegetarian in practiee. "Ears without lobes and ears with points near the upper part of their margins are signs of degeneration. The pointed t'p represents that found in many of the lower animals. "Ears which are very large or very small ears which stand out at right angles from the head, or are plastered against the cranium; ears devoid of nooks and crannies, looking as if they had been ironed out, and ears situated either too high or too low in relation to the eye all tell of atavisms or reversions or arrested developments representing certain degrees of de-o-finerncv.

"Red-headed people ai'e said to he over-sexed. It is a curious reflection that when women wish to emphasise their sexual attractions they either dye the'r hair red or wear a red wig. "But 'ginger' is not a fool. He is not as other nien are, but he is more often their superior than their inferior. "The fat man imitated the hibernating hahits of his ammal ancestors by accumulating vast stores of inter- j nal provisions, in subconscious preparation for the winter's fast — which never arrived. The fat man was sleepy hecause his suhconsciousness was tryhig to make him hibernate." Referring to the tendency to effeminacy in nien since the war, Dr. Williams stated that it was attributed to a revulsion from everything which was male, and, therefore comhative. He suggested that efEeminate nien lived longer than normal nien, and wero consp:cuously suceessful in the realms of art, science, * music, and literature.