Page 16 - The Evolution Impasse 1

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The Europeans’ extermination of the anthropomorphous apes . . . will no do-
Aboriginals on the pretext that they were ubt be exterminated. The break between
primitives gained momentum from the man and his nearest allies will then be
publication of Charles Darwin’s Descent wider, for it will intervene between man
in a more civilized state, as we may hope,
of Man (See, Descent of Man). In this
even than the Caucasian, and some ape
book, he proposed that there was a
as low as the baboon, instead of as now
“struggle for life” among the different
between the negro or Australian and the
races of humanity and that the “fittest”
gorilla. 4
races were those that survived.
As we see, Darwin placed Australian
According to Darwin, the fittest were
Aboriginals on the same level as goril-
white Europeans. Asian and African ra-
las. He did not consider the Aboriginals
ces fell behind in this struggle. Darwin
to be human beings and believed that
went further to suggest that they would
those who were exterminating them we-
soon lose their struggle for survival and
re only killing gorilla-like animals.
be totally annihilated:
After Darwin, some evolutionists
At some future period not very distant as
stated that “if human beings and apes
measured by centuries, the civilized ra-
descended from a common ancestor, the-
ces of man will almost certainly extermi-
re must be somewhere in the world a
nate, and replace the savage races thro-
transitional form (half-human and half-
ughout the world. At the same time the
ape) that has still not totally evolved.”
THE EVOLUTION IMPASSE I