Man And His Ancestor: A Study In Evolution

by Charles Morris

This view of the case is not likely to be accepted as final. Science has bridged so many gaps in the kingdom of nature that it is not likely to retire baffled from this one, but will continue its investigations in place of accepting conclusions that have not the standing even of hypothesis, since they are unsupported by a single known fact. At first sight, indeed, the facts which bear upon this question seem stubborn things to explain by the evolution theory. The gap in intellect between the highest apes and the lowest man is a considerable one, which no existing ape seems likely ever to cross. However the anthropoid apes gained their degree of mental ability, it does not appear to be on the increase. They are in a state of mental stagnation and may have remained so for millions of years. Something similar, indeed, can be said of the lowest savages. They also are mentally stagnant. The indications are that for thousands, or tens of thousands, of years in the past their intellectual progress has been almost nothing. Yet it is beyond reasonable question that the advanced thinker of to-day has evolved from an ancestor as low in the mental scale as this savage, probably much lower; and this renders it very conceivable that a similar process of evolution covered the interval between the ape intellect and that of primitive man.

Somewhere, at some time in the far past, the mental stagnation of man was broken, and the development of the mind began its long progression toward enlightenment. This was not in the localities in which the lower savages are now found, the equatorial forests of Africa and South America and other realms of savage life, the change in all probability taking place elsewhere, under new and severe exigencies of life. Similarly we have much justification in saying that somewhere, at some time, the mental stagnation of the ape was broken, and the long development of the mind from ape to man began. This did not take place in the instances of the existing anthropoids, and, as in the analogous case of civilized man, its influencing cause must be looked for in exigencies of existence acting upon some form different in character and habitat from these apes.

The existing anthropoid apes may justly be compared in condition with the existing low savages. In both cases a satisfactory adaptation to their situation has been gained. These apes are still arboreal and frugivorous, as their remote ancestors were. They have for ages been in a state of close adaptation to their life conditions, and the influences of development have been largely wanting. Such evolution as took place must have been extremely slow. In like manner the lowest savages live in intimate relations with the conditions surrounding them. All problems of food-getting, habitation, climate, etc., have long since been solved, and in the tropical forests in which so many of them dwell they are in thorough accord with the situation. Mentally, therefore, they are practically at a standstill and have remained so for thousands of years. The two cases are parallel ones. We can safely say that the later development of man took place in other situations and under other conditions. We may fairly say the same in regard to the ape. Vigorous influences must have been brought to bear upon the ancestor of man as the instigating causes of its mental development into man; and similarly vigorous influences must have been brought to bear upon primitive man to set in train his mental development into intellectual man. And the general character of these influences in both cases may readily be pointed out. An extraordinary development has taken place in the human intellect within a few thousands, or tens of thousands, of years, yielding the difference which exists between the cultivated man of to-day and the debased savage who probably preceded him, and whose counterpart still exists. This has undoubtedly been due to influences of the highest potency. If we can show that influences of equal potency acted upon man's ancestor, we shall have done much toward indicating how the ape brain may have grown into the brain of man.

In both cases the main agency was in all probability that of conflict. Both ape and man, as we take it, developed through some form of warfare. In the former case it was warfare with the animal kingdom; in the latter it was warfare with the conditions of nature and with hostile man. Each of these has been potent in its effects, and to each we owe the completion of a great stage in the evolution of man.

In the tropics, the home of the anthropoid apes of to-day and, probably, of the animal we have named the man-ape, war between man and nature scarcely exists. Nature is not hostile to man. There is no occasion for clothing and little for habitation. Food is abundant for the sparse populations. Little exertion is called for to sustain life. Mental stagnation is very likely to supervene. Yet there, as elsewhere, conflict has had much to do with such mental progress as exists. Mastery in warfare is due to superior mental resources, which gradually arise from the exigencies of conflict, and manifest themselves in greater shrewdness or cunning, superior ability in leadership, better organization, fuller mutual aid, and the invention of more destructive weapons and more efficient tools. War acts vigorously on men's minds, peace acts sluggishly. In the former case man's most valued possession, his life, is in jeopardy, and his utmost powers are exerted for its preservation. Every resource within his power is brought to bear to save himself from wounds or death and to destroy his enemies. If the foes are equal physically, victory is apt to come to those which are superior mentally, which are quicker at devising new expedients, more alert in providing against danger, more skilful in the use of weapons, abler in combining their forces to act in unison. In short, the whole story of mankind tells us that mental evolution has been greatly aided by the influences of warfare, the reaction upon the mind of the effort at self-preservation, the destruction of those at a lower level of intellectual alertness, the preservation of the abler and more energetic, the effect of conflict in bringing into activity all the resources of the intellect, and the hereditary transmission of the powers of mind thus developed. It is, undoubtedly, to war between man and man, and the conflict with the adverse conditions of nature in the colder regions of the earth, that man's development from his lowest to his highest intellectual state has been largely due. This is by no means to say that war is still necessary for this result. Other influences are now at work, of equal or superior potency, and while the conflict with nature and the conditions of society is still of importance, war between man and man is no longer necessary as a mental stimulant. The time was, and that not very far in the past, when it was an essential element in human development.

If we descend to the lowest existing savages, however, it is to find this agency almost non-existent. We can perceive in them no organized warfare and no alert conflict with nature. They are as yet at the very beginning of this stage of evolution, and it certainly exerts little influence upon them. Nature is not adverse, life needs little thought or exertion, they accept the world as they find it, without question or revolt, and their thoughts and habits are as unchangeable as the laws of the Medes and Persians. But the fact that active warfare does not now exist among the lowest tribes of mankind, does not argue that such a state has never existed. In truth, we maintain that primitive man is the outcome of an active and long-continued warfare, and that his settled and sluggish condition to-day is the ease that follows victory. He has conquered and is at rest after his labors.

For if we compare primitive man with the anthropoid apes, it is to find one striking and important difference between them. The anthropoids are at a level in position with their animal neighbors. Man is lord and master of the animal kingdom, the dominant being in the world of life. He has no rival in this lordship, but stands alone in his relation to the animal kingdom. He is feared and avoided by the largest and strongest beasts of field and forest. He does not fight defensively, but offensively, and whatever his relation to his fellow-man, he admits no equal in the world of life below him. He is the only animal that has made a struggle for lordship. The gorilla is said to attack the lion and drive it from its haunts. If it does so, it is not with any desire for mastery, but simply to rid itself of a dangerous neighbor. The battle for dominion has been confined to man, and in the winning of it no small degree of mental development must have taken place.

The supremacy of man was not gained without a struggle, and that a severe and protracted one. The animal kingdom did not yield readily to man's lordship, and the war must have been long and bitter, settled as the relations now seem. Rest has succeeded victory. The lower animals are now submissive to man, or retire before him in dread of his strength and resources, and the strain upon his powers has ceased. So far as this phase of evolution is concerned the influences aiding the mental development of man have lost their strength. The warfare is over, and man reigns supreme over the kingdom of life.

Of all animals the man-ape was the best adapted for such a struggle. The other anthropoid apes, while favored by the formation of their hands, lacked that freedom of the arms to which man mainly owes his success. No other animal has ever appeared with arms freed from duty in locomotion and at the same time endued with the power of grasping, and these are the features of organization to which the evolution of the human intellect was wholly due in its first stages. The man-ape was not able to contend successfully with the larger animals by aid of its natural weapons. Its diminutive size, its lack of tearing claws, and its lesser powers of speed, left it at a disadvantage, and had it attempted to conquer by the aid of its strength and the seizing and rending powers of teeth and nails, its victory over the larger animals would never have been won. Even with the aid of the cunning and alertness of the apes, their power of observation, their combination for defence and attack, and their general mental superiority to the tenants of the animal world, their supremacy in the event of their becoming carnivorous must have been confined to the smaller creatures, and could not have been established over the larger animals of their native habitat except through the aid of other than their natural powers.

It was by the use of artificial weapons that the conquest was gained. The tendency to use missiles as weapons of offence and defence, which is shown by various species of monkeys, was in all probability greatly developed by the man-ape, the only carnivorous member, if our premises are correct, of the whole extensive family of the apes, and the only one with the free use of its hands and arms. By the use of weapons of this kind the powers of offence of this animal were enormously increased. As skill was acquired in their use, and more efficient weapons were selected or formed, the man-ape steadily advanced in controlling influence, and the lower animal world became more and more subordinated. No doubt the struggle was a protracted one. The previously dominant animals did not submit without a severe and long-continued contest. Thousands of years may have passed before the larger animals were subdued, for it is probable that the invention of superior weapons by an animal of low mental powers was a very slow process. Each stage of invention gave higher success, but these stages were very deliberate ones.