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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.
With him went his mother, who carried the pots and the sleeping-mat, she who carried nothing at her kraal. "The trail led into the Great Forest toward the rising sun, and there were dangers between the sunrise and its setting dangers between the setting of the sun and its rising. "A man-ape of great stature, hairy and fierce, stood before us in the path.
To return to the point from which we set out, it may be said that, as the man-ape gained facility in walking in the erect attitude, and its hands and arms became fully adapted to the use of weapons, its standing in the animal kingdom changed essentially from that before held.
"Given certain conditions, and inevitably the human form will most certainly become the supreme creature, superior to all the others. "However, suppose the planetary conditions are entirely different. I conceive it entirely possible for one of the other animals to forge ahead of the man-ape; quite possible, Smith," as the engineer started to object, "if only the conditions are different ENOUGH.
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.
Since the era of the man-ape, almost the whole sum of the forces of development have been centred in the mental powers of this animal, with the result that the brain has grown in size and functional capacity, while the remainder of the body has remained practically unchanged.
We might snare a live gorilla, and there is not a gorilla in the zoological gardens of Europe." "A gorilla!" said Venning, thinking of a picture he had seen of an erect man-ape bending a rifle-barrel into an arch as if it were a cane. "A gorilla!" said Compton. "I should like to find the Garden of Rest." "You have heard his story, Mr. Venning?" said the hunter, nodding his head at Compton.
A third stage in this progress was reached when to some wise-headed old man-ape came the idea of combining the two forms of weapon in use, of fastening in some way the stone to the club in order that a more effective blow might be struck.
The natural presumption from this interesting fact is that man's ancestor, which we may provisionally call the man-ape, differed essentially in its mode of progression from the other apes. The smaller forms of these usually move on all fours in the trees, though the arms are always ready for a swing or a climb.
Wallace then hired another set of servants and resolved to make no confidants, but just go ahead and find his game. He had hunted for weeks through forest and jungle, but never a glimpse or sight of the man-ape!
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