scientific attainments have
come through the faculty of reason. Briefly, the evidences of intellect or
reason are manifest in man. By them he is differentiated from the animal.
Therefore, the animal kingdom is distinct and inferior to the human
kingdom. Notwithstanding this, the philosophers of the West have certain
syllogisms, or demonstrations, whereby they endeavor to prove that man had
his origin in the animal kingdom; that although he is now a vertebrate, he
originally lived in the sea; from thence he was transferred to the land
and became vertebrate; that gradually his feet and hands appeared in his
anatomical development; then he began to walk upon all fours, after which
he attained to human stature, walking erect. They find that his anatomy
has undergone successive changes, finally assuming human form, and that
these intermediate forms or changes are like links connected. Between man
and the ape, however, there is one link missing, and to the present time
scientists have not been able to discover it. Therefore, the greatest
proof of this western theory of human evolution is anatomical, reasoning
that there are certain vestiges of organs found in man which are peculiar
to the ape and lower animals, and setting forth the conclusion that man at
some time in his upward progression has possessed these organs which are
no longer functioning but appear now as mere rudiments and vestiges.

For example, a serpent has a certain appendage which indicates that at one
time it was possessed of long limbs, but as this creature began to find
its habitation in the holes of the earth, these limbs, no longer needed,
became atrophied and shrunk, leaving but a vestige, or appendage, as an
evidence of the time when they were lengthy and serviceable. Likewise, it
is claimed man had a certain appendage which shows that there was a time
when his anatomical structure was different from his present organism and
that there has been a corresponding transformation or change in that
structure. The coccyx, or extremity of the human spinal column, is
declared to be the vestige of a tail which man formerly possessed but
which gradually disappeared when he walked erect and its utility ceased.
These statements and demonstrations express the substance of western
philosophy upon the question of human evolution.

The philosophers of the Orient in reply to those of the western world say:
Let us suppose that the human anatomy was primordially different