ABSTRACT
TAKING stock of the case as far as we have gone, certain conditions exist. (1) No ape, existing or fossil, is known which can be offered as a probable ancestor of man. (2) The kind of ape ancestor which evolution needs for man is not an arboreal quadruped like primates generally, but an upright terrestrial biped. This is stated in Osborn’s “Man Rises to Parnassus” and in Mr. Brewster’s last paper. Such a beast would not be a suitable ancestor for the known apes, which are quadrupeds; therefore even according to the theory of evolution man is not evolved from the apes. (3) No definite fossil of any kind whatever can be offered as a probable ancestor for either man or ape. (4) No indication is found in the rocks of any kind of plant or animal having evolved into plant or animal of a different type of structure. (5) Special creation was needed in originating the first living things and in originating new features like sex, nerves, eyes, and so on. (6) Even when some great kind of plant or animal exists, like clovers among plants and felines among animals, evolution (natural variation and natural selection) cannot, for all that can be seen, originate a new species, that is to say, a new group, the members of which are interfertile with one another but sterile as far as other groups are concerned. (7) Any changes which may be brought about among plants and animals by natural variation and natural selection are very limited in amount. Certain differences between apes and men are certainly too great for evolution to bridge. (8) Although anthropologists assert that men have lived on earth for hundreds of thousands of years, the distribution of human remains and artifacts shows that in fact man is “very recent.” This was shown by Mr. Brewster in his first paper.
