P704:6, 62:3.1
Early in the career of the dawn mammals, in the treetop abode of a superior
pair of these agile creatures, twins were born, one male and one female. Compared
with their ancestors, they were really handsome
little creatures. They had little hair on their bodies, but this was no disability
as they lived in a warm and equable climate.
P705:1, 62:3.2
These children grew to be a little over four feet in height. They were in
every way larger than their parents, having longer legs and shorter arms.
They had almost perfectly opposable thumbs, just about as well adapted for
diversified work as the present human thumb. They walked upright, having feet
almost as well suited for walking as those of the later human races.
P705:2, 62:3.3
Their brains were inferior to, and smaller than, those of human beings but
very superior to, and comparatively much larger than, those of their ancestors.
The twins early displayed superior intelligence and were soon recognized as
the heads of the whole tribe of dawn mammals, really instituting a primitive
form of social organization and a crude economic division of labor. This brother
and sister mated and soon enjoyed the society of twenty-one children much
like themselves, all more than four feet tall and in every way superior to
the ancestral species. This new group formed the nucleus of the mid-mammals.
P705:3, 62:3.4
When the numbers of this new and superior group grew great, war, relentless
war, broke out; and when the terrible struggle was over, not a single individual
of the pre-existent and ancestral race of dawn mammals remained alive. The
less numerous but more powerful and intelligent offshoot of the species had
survived at the expense of their ancestors.
P705:4, 62:3.5
And now, for almost fifteen thousand years (six hundred generations), this
creature became the terror of this part of the world. All of the great and
vicious animals of former times had perished. The large beasts native to these
regions were not carnivorous, and the larger species of the cat family, lions
and tigers, had not yet invaded this peculiarly sheltered nook of the earth's
surface. Therefore did these mid-mammals wax valiant and subdue the whole
of their corner of creation.
P705:5, 62:3.6
Compared with the ancestral species, the mid-mammals were an improvement in
every way. Even their potential life span was longer, being about twenty-five
years. A number of rudimentary human traits appeared in this new species.
In addition to the innate propensities exhibited by their ancestors, these
mid-mammals were capable of showing disgust in certain repulsive situations.
They further possessed a well-defined hoarding instinct; they would hide food
for subsequent use and were greatly given to the collection of smooth round
pebbles and certain types of round stones suitable for defensive and offensive
ammunition.
P705:6, 62:3.7
These mid-mammals were the first to exhibit a definite construction propensity,
as shown in their rivalry in the building of both treetop homes and their
many-tunneled subterranean
retreats; they were the first species of mammals ever to provide for safety
in both arboreal and underground shelters. They largely forsook the trees
as places of abode, living on the ground during the day and sleeping in the
treetops at night.
P705:7, 62:3.8
As time passed, the natural increase in numbers eventually resulted in serious
food competition and sex rivalry, all of which culminated in a series of internecine
battles that nearly destroyed the entire species. These struggles continued
until only one group of less than one hundred individuals was left alive.
But peace once more prevailed, and this lone surviving tribe built anew its
treetop bedrooms and once again resumed a normal
and semipeaceful existence.
P705:8, 62:3.9
You can hardly realize by what narrow margins your prehuman ancestors missed
extinction from time to time. Had the ancestral frog of all humanity jumped
two inches less on a certain occasion, the whole course of evolution would
have been markedly changed. The immediate lemurlike
mother of the dawn-mammal species escaped death
no less than five times by mere hairbreadth margins
before she gave birth to the father of the new and higher mammalian order.
But the closest call of all was when lightning struck the tree in which the
prospective mother of the Primates twins was sleeping. Both of these mid-mammal
parents were severely shocked and badly burned; three of their seven children
were killed by this bolt from the skies. These evolving animals were almost
superstitious. This couple whose treetop home had been struck were really
the leaders of the more progressive group of the mid-mammal species; and following
their example, more than half the tribe, embracing the more intelligent families,
moved about two miles away from this locality and began the construction of
new treetop abodes and new ground shelters -- their transient retreats in
time of sudden danger.
P706:1, 62:3.10
Soon after the completion of their home, this couple, veterans of so many
struggles, found themselves the proud parents of twins, the most interesting
and important animals ever to have been born into the world up to that time,
for they were the first of the new species of Primates constituting
the next vital step in prehuman evolution.
P706:2, 62:3.11
Contemporaneously with the birth of these Primates twins, another couple --
a peculiarly retarded male and female of the mid-mammal tribe, a couple that
were both mentally and physically inferior -- also gave birth to twins. These
twins, one male and one female, were indifferent to conquest; they were concerned
only with obtaining food and, since they would not eat flesh, soon lost all
interest in seeking prey. These retarded twins
became the founders of the modern simian tribes. Their descendants sought
the warmer southern regions with their mild climates and an abundance of tropical
fruits, where they have continued much as of that day except for those branches
which mated with the earlier types of gibbons and apes and have greatly deteriorated
in consequence.
P706:3, 62:3.12
And so it may be readily seen that man and the ape are related only in that
they sprang from the mid-mammals, a tribe in which there occurred the contemporaneous
birth and subsequent segregation of two pairs of twins: the inferior pair
destined to produce the modern types of monkey, baboon,
chimpanzee, and gorilla; the superior pair destined to continue the line of
ascent which evolved into man himself.
P706:4, 62:3.13
Modern man and the simians did spring from the same tribe and species but
not from the same parents. Man's ancestors are descended from the superior
strains of the selected remnant of this mid-mammal tribe, whereas the modern
simians (excepting certain pre-existent types of lemurs, gibbons, apes, and
other monkeylike creatures) are the descendants of the most inferior couple
of this mid-mammal group, a couple who only survived by hiding themselves
in a subterranean food-storage retreat for more
than two weeks during the last fierce battle of their tribe, emerging only
after the hostilities were well over.