Читать книгу History of Human Society - Frank W. Blackmar - Страница 21

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The Origin of Man Has not Yet Been Determined.—Man's origin is still shrouded in mystery, notwithstanding the accumulated knowledge of the results of scientific investigation in the field and in the laboratory. The earliest historical records and relics of the seats of ancient civilization all point backward to an earlier period of human life. Looking back from the earliest civilizations along the Euphrates and the Nile that have recorded the deeds of man so that their evidences could be handed down from generation to generation, the earlier prehistoric records of man stretch away in the dim past for more than a hundred thousand years. The time that has elapsed from the earliest historical records to the present is only a few minutes compared to the centuries that preceded it.

Wherever we go in the field of knowledge, we shall find evidences of man's great antiquity. We know at least that he has been on earth a long, long period. As to the method of his appearance, there is no absolutely determining evidence. Yet science has run back into the field of conjecture with such strong lines that we may assume with practical certainty something of his early life. He stands at the head of the zoological division of the animal kingdom. The Anthropoid Ape is the animal that most nearly resembles man. It might be said to stand next to man in the procession of species. So far as our knowledge can ascertain, it appears that man was developed in the same manner as the higher types in the animal and vegetable world, namely, by the process of evolution, and by evolution we mean continuous progressive change according to law, from external and internal stimuli. The process of evolution is not a process of creation, nor does evolution move in a straight line, but through the process of differentiation. In no other way can one account for the multitudes of the types and races of the human being, except by this process of differentiation which is one of the main factors of evolution. Accompanying the process of differentiation is that of specialization and integration. When types become highly specialized they fail to adapt themselves to new environments, and other types not so highly specialized prevail. So far as the human race is concerned, it seems to be evolved according to the law of sympodial development—that is, a certain specialized part of the human race develops certain traits and is limited in its adaptability to a specific environment. Closely allied with this are some individuals or groups possessing human traits that are less highly specialized, and hence are adaptable to new conditions. Under new conditions the main stem of development perishes and the budded branch survives.

We have abundant pictures of this in prehistoric times, and records show that this also has been the common lot of man. Modern man thus could not have been developed from any of the living species of the Anthropoid Apes, but he might have had a common origin in the physical, chemical, and vital forces that produced the apes. One line of specialization made the ape, another line made man. Subsequently the separation of man into the various races and species came about by the survival of some races for a time, and then to be superseded by a branch of the same race which differentiated in a period of development before high specialization had taken place.

Methods of Recounting Prehistoric Time.[1]—Present time is measured in terms of centuries, years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, and seconds, but the second is the determining power of mechanical measurement, though it is derived mainly by the movement of the earth around the sun and the turning of the earth on its axis. Mechanically we have derived the second as the unit. It is easy for us to think in hours or days or weeks, though it may be the seconds tick off unnoticed and the years glide by unnoticed; but it is difficult to think in centuries—more difficult in millions of years. The little time that man has been on earth compared with the creation of the earth makes it difficult for us to estimate the time of creation. The much less time in the historical period makes it seem but a flash in the movement of the creation.