"Work keeps us from three great evils: boredom, vice and poverty." VOLTAIRE
By Alex P. Vidal
Voltaire (the pseudonym of Francois-Marie Arouet), while contributing little that could be described as entirely original to the philosophical canon, poured out to the world a most extraordinary mixture of novels, plays, reviews, pamphlets and historical words.
In many ways, with his total commitment to the world around him, he was the epitome of the Age of Enlightenment.
Voltaire's early satirical works earned him a year in the Bastille and later, in 1726, exile to England.
RADICAL
Already a radical and liberal, he quickly saw in England a society that enjoyed far greater justice and freedom than France.
In his Letters Philosophiques he praises social, religious and political liberty and uses social utility as the definition of good political institutions.
He was a firm believer in God, but was entirely opposed to the views of the Church and proposed that doubt should be the beginning of wisdom and enlightenment.
He saw evil as essentially man-made, and a mystery that refused to be solved.
His most famous tale, Candide, highlights a world where human life and dignity are of little importance.
Voltaire's portrait of Pangloss in the novel was at the expense of Pope and Gottfried Leibnitz.
NON-VIOLENCE
Voltaire, unlike many of his supporters, was a strong advocator of non-violence and believed with passion that the fight against authority, tradition and conformity could be won without the spilling of blood.
Although he died before the onset of the French Revolution, his style of thought did much to inspire the events in 1789.
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Signs of love and infatuation
"When one has love for God, one doesn't feel any physical attraction to wife, children, relatives and friends. One retains only compassion for them"--RAMAKRISHNA
By Alex P. Vidal
WHEN we are "attracted" to one person, what really is our main interest in that person?
What appeals to us most? What "turns us on"?
Our answer to these questions can help us decide if it's love.
In the revised edition of Sex, Love, or Infatuation, author Dr. Ray E. Short explains that if we are infatuated, our "main interest is likely to be the other person's physical equipment."
For males, Short says, that probably translates into whether the woman has a pretty face and nice curves in all the right places.
Attractive eyes and an athletic body may really get a female's attention.
Short observes that when girls sigh, "Oooh! What a hunk!" or boys exclaim, "Get a load of that!" they don't mean the other person has a bright brain.
"All that suggests infatuation," he explains. "The main stress is on things you can perceive right away--what you can see, hear, smell, taste, or touch about the person."
TOTAL PERSONALITY
On the other hand, if we truly love someone, our interest is in her or his total personality.
We are attracted to the whole person.
"The physical features are only some of the many things you like," stresses Short. "It's not just the body you care about, it's what's housed in the body. It's not just what shows on the surface, but also what's beneath the surface. The face, after all, is just a mask. It's what's behind the mask that counts most."
Real love, the author says, arms us with X-ray vision--we can see far more about the one we love than what first meets the eye.
"And that's all to the good," Short explains.
People today have a great way of making this point. They say, "You're a beautiful person." Now, they don't mean by that that we would win a beauty contest.
We may have a face that would stop a clock! What they mean is that we're a beautiful kind of person--nice to be around.
Whether or not we look beautiful, we are beautiful.
DISTINCTION
We will want to keep this distinction clearly in mind in the search for love.
"Some men make a tragic mistake--they pass up a beautiful woman to marry a pretty girl. But looks can be deceiving," warns Short. "A beautiful face and a handsome body are like the wrapping around gift. The outside glitter tells you nothing at all about what's inside.
Any old thing can be done up in a nice wrapping, yet the contents may be something you won't like it all. In fact, a gift box may be completely empty--and so may a pretty face or a handsome head!"
Short narrates that "out of the dozens of high school assemblies I went to as a boy, I recall only one. 'Boys,' the speaker said solemnly, 'before you marry a girl for her pretty face and sexy form, ask yourself: What's she going to look like in 30 years?' That stopped me. And it should stop you, too."
Indeed, what will she/he look like in 30 years? She will no doubt have her share of wrinkles and unsightly sags and bags. He may sport a shiny bald head where the lush crop of curls now hangs.
And his Greek chest? It may well have slipped down about a foot.
Probably neither of us will look like too much by then. In spite of that, we will be expected to remain married.
And if we are to do that, we will need more going for us than a few faded memories of how pretty or how handsome each of us used to look.
By Alex P. Vidal
WHEN we are "attracted" to one person, what really is our main interest in that person?
What appeals to us most? What "turns us on"?
Our answer to these questions can help us decide if it's love.
In the revised edition of Sex, Love, or Infatuation, author Dr. Ray E. Short explains that if we are infatuated, our "main interest is likely to be the other person's physical equipment."
For males, Short says, that probably translates into whether the woman has a pretty face and nice curves in all the right places.
Attractive eyes and an athletic body may really get a female's attention.
Short observes that when girls sigh, "Oooh! What a hunk!" or boys exclaim, "Get a load of that!" they don't mean the other person has a bright brain.
"All that suggests infatuation," he explains. "The main stress is on things you can perceive right away--what you can see, hear, smell, taste, or touch about the person."
TOTAL PERSONALITY
On the other hand, if we truly love someone, our interest is in her or his total personality.
We are attracted to the whole person.
"The physical features are only some of the many things you like," stresses Short. "It's not just the body you care about, it's what's housed in the body. It's not just what shows on the surface, but also what's beneath the surface. The face, after all, is just a mask. It's what's behind the mask that counts most."
Real love, the author says, arms us with X-ray vision--we can see far more about the one we love than what first meets the eye.
"And that's all to the good," Short explains.
People today have a great way of making this point. They say, "You're a beautiful person." Now, they don't mean by that that we would win a beauty contest.
We may have a face that would stop a clock! What they mean is that we're a beautiful kind of person--nice to be around.
Whether or not we look beautiful, we are beautiful.
DISTINCTION
We will want to keep this distinction clearly in mind in the search for love.
"Some men make a tragic mistake--they pass up a beautiful woman to marry a pretty girl. But looks can be deceiving," warns Short. "A beautiful face and a handsome body are like the wrapping around gift. The outside glitter tells you nothing at all about what's inside.
Any old thing can be done up in a nice wrapping, yet the contents may be something you won't like it all. In fact, a gift box may be completely empty--and so may a pretty face or a handsome head!"
Short narrates that "out of the dozens of high school assemblies I went to as a boy, I recall only one. 'Boys,' the speaker said solemnly, 'before you marry a girl for her pretty face and sexy form, ask yourself: What's she going to look like in 30 years?' That stopped me. And it should stop you, too."
Indeed, what will she/he look like in 30 years? She will no doubt have her share of wrinkles and unsightly sags and bags. He may sport a shiny bald head where the lush crop of curls now hangs.
And his Greek chest? It may well have slipped down about a foot.
Probably neither of us will look like too much by then. In spite of that, we will be expected to remain married.
And if we are to do that, we will need more going for us than a few faded memories of how pretty or how handsome each of us used to look.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Do we have the courage to create?
"You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor." Aristotle
By Alex P. Vidal
TO begin with, what is courage?
For Rollo May, author of The Courage to Create, courage should not be the opposite of despair saying "we shall often be faced with despair, as indeed every sensitive person has been during the last several decades."
Kierkegaard and Nietszche and Camus and Sarte have proclaimed that "courage is not the absence of despair; it is, rather, the capacity to move ahead in spite of despair."
According to May, courage is not a virtue or value among other personal values like love or fidelity. It is the foundation that underlies and gives reality to all other virtues and personal values.
"Without courage our love pales into mere dependency. Without courage our fidelity becomes conformism," Mayo explains.
HEART
The word courage, he says, comes from the same stem as the French word coeur, meaning "heart." Thus just as one's heart, by pumping blood to one's arms, legs, and brain enables all the other physical organs to function, so courage makes possible all the psychological virtues.
Without courage other values wither away into mere facsimiles of virtue.
Mayo further explains that in human beings, courage is necessary to make being and becoming possible. An assertion of the self, a commitment, is essential if the self is to have any reality.
This is the distinction between human beings and the rest of nature.
The acorn becomes an oak by means of automatic growth; no commitment is necessary, Mayo stresses. "The kitten similarly becomes a cat on the basis of instinct. Nature and being are identical in creatures like them. But a man or woman becomes fully human only by his or her choices and his or her commitment to them."
"People attain worth and dignity by the multitude of decisions they make from day by day. These decisions require courage. This is why Paul Tillich speaks of courage as ontological--it is essential to our being," he narrates.
OBVIOUS
PHYSICAL COURAGE. This is the simplest and most obvious kind of courage. In our culture, physical courage takes its form chiefly from the myths of the frontier. Our prototypes have been the pioneer heroes who took the law into their own hands, who survived because they could draw a gun faster than their opponent, who were, above all things, self-reliant and could endure the inevitable loneliness in homesteading with the nearest neighbor 20 miles away.
MORAL COURAGE. A second kind of courage is moral courage. Persons who have great moral courage have generally abhorred violence. Mayo calls this as "perceptual courage" because it depends on one's capacity to perceive, to let one's self see the suffering of other people. If we let ourselves experience the evil, we will be forced to do something about it. It is the truth, recognizable in all of us, that when we don't want to become involved, when we don't want to confront even the issue of whether or not we'll come to the aid of someone who is being unjustly treated, we block off our perception, we blind ourselves to other's suffering, we cut off our empathy with the person needing help. Hence the most prevalent form of cowardice in our day hides behind the statement "I did not want to become involved."
OPPOSITE
SOCIAL COURAGE. The third kind of courage is the opposite to the just described apathy; Mayo call is social courage.
It is the courage to relate to other human beings, the capacity to risk one's self in the hope of achieving meaningful intimacy.
It is the courage to invest one's self over a period of time in a relationship that will demand an increasing openness.
"Intimacy requires courage because risk is inescapable," Mayo writes. "We cannot know at the outset how the relationship will affect us. Like a chemical mixture, if one of us is changed, both of us will be. Will we grow in self-actualization, or will it destroy us? The one thing we can be certain of is that if we let ourselves fully into the relationship for good or evil, we will not come out unaffected."
Social courage requires the confronting of two different kinds of fear. These were beautifully described by one of the early psychoanalysts, Otto Rank. The first he calls the "life fear." This is the fear of living autonomously, the fear of being abandoned, the need for dependency on someone else.
It shows itself in the need to throw one's self so completely into a relationship that one has no self left with which to relate. One becomes, in effect, a reflection of the person he or she loves--which sooner or later becomes boring to the partner.
This is the fear of self-actualization, as Rank described it. Living some 40 years before the days of women's liberation, Rank averred that this kind of fear was most typical of women.
'DEATH FEAR'
The opposite fear Rank called the "death fear." This is the fear of being totally absorbed by the other, the fear of losing one's self and one's autonomy, the fear of having one's independence taken away. This, said Rank, is the fear most associated with men, for they seek to keep the back door open to beat a hasty retreat in case the relationship becomes too intimate.
ONE PARADOX OF COURAGE. A curious paradox characteristic of every kind of courage here confronts us, according to May. It is the seeming contradiction that we must be fully committed, but we must also be aware at the same time that we might possibly be wrong. This dialectic relationship between conviction and doubt is characteristic of the highest types of courage, and gives the lie to the simplistic definitions that identify courage with mere growth.
CREATIVE COURAGE. This brings us to the most important kind of courage of all. Whereas moral courage is the righting of wrongs, creative courage, in contrast, is the discovering of new forms, new symbols, new patterns on which a new society can be built. Every profession can and does require some creative courage. In our day, technology and engineering, diplomacy, business, and certainly teaching, all of these professions and scores of others are in the midst of radical change and require courageous persons to appreciate and direct this change. Mayo says the need for creative courage is in direct proportion to the degree of change the profession is undergoing.
TO begin with, what is courage?
For Rollo May, author of The Courage to Create, courage should not be the opposite of despair saying "we shall often be faced with despair, as indeed every sensitive person has been during the last several decades."
Kierkegaard and Nietszche and Camus and Sarte have proclaimed that "courage is not the absence of despair; it is, rather, the capacity to move ahead in spite of despair."
According to May, courage is not a virtue or value among other personal values like love or fidelity. It is the foundation that underlies and gives reality to all other virtues and personal values.
"Without courage our love pales into mere dependency. Without courage our fidelity becomes conformism," Mayo explains.
HEART
The word courage, he says, comes from the same stem as the French word coeur, meaning "heart." Thus just as one's heart, by pumping blood to one's arms, legs, and brain enables all the other physical organs to function, so courage makes possible all the psychological virtues.
Without courage other values wither away into mere facsimiles of virtue.
Mayo further explains that in human beings, courage is necessary to make being and becoming possible. An assertion of the self, a commitment, is essential if the self is to have any reality.
This is the distinction between human beings and the rest of nature.
The acorn becomes an oak by means of automatic growth; no commitment is necessary, Mayo stresses. "The kitten similarly becomes a cat on the basis of instinct. Nature and being are identical in creatures like them. But a man or woman becomes fully human only by his or her choices and his or her commitment to them."
"People attain worth and dignity by the multitude of decisions they make from day by day. These decisions require courage. This is why Paul Tillich speaks of courage as ontological--it is essential to our being," he narrates.
OBVIOUS
PHYSICAL COURAGE. This is the simplest and most obvious kind of courage. In our culture, physical courage takes its form chiefly from the myths of the frontier. Our prototypes have been the pioneer heroes who took the law into their own hands, who survived because they could draw a gun faster than their opponent, who were, above all things, self-reliant and could endure the inevitable loneliness in homesteading with the nearest neighbor 20 miles away.
MORAL COURAGE. A second kind of courage is moral courage. Persons who have great moral courage have generally abhorred violence. Mayo calls this as "perceptual courage" because it depends on one's capacity to perceive, to let one's self see the suffering of other people. If we let ourselves experience the evil, we will be forced to do something about it. It is the truth, recognizable in all of us, that when we don't want to become involved, when we don't want to confront even the issue of whether or not we'll come to the aid of someone who is being unjustly treated, we block off our perception, we blind ourselves to other's suffering, we cut off our empathy with the person needing help. Hence the most prevalent form of cowardice in our day hides behind the statement "I did not want to become involved."
OPPOSITE
SOCIAL COURAGE. The third kind of courage is the opposite to the just described apathy; Mayo call is social courage.
It is the courage to relate to other human beings, the capacity to risk one's self in the hope of achieving meaningful intimacy.
It is the courage to invest one's self over a period of time in a relationship that will demand an increasing openness.
"Intimacy requires courage because risk is inescapable," Mayo writes. "We cannot know at the outset how the relationship will affect us. Like a chemical mixture, if one of us is changed, both of us will be. Will we grow in self-actualization, or will it destroy us? The one thing we can be certain of is that if we let ourselves fully into the relationship for good or evil, we will not come out unaffected."
Social courage requires the confronting of two different kinds of fear. These were beautifully described by one of the early psychoanalysts, Otto Rank. The first he calls the "life fear." This is the fear of living autonomously, the fear of being abandoned, the need for dependency on someone else.
It shows itself in the need to throw one's self so completely into a relationship that one has no self left with which to relate. One becomes, in effect, a reflection of the person he or she loves--which sooner or later becomes boring to the partner.
This is the fear of self-actualization, as Rank described it. Living some 40 years before the days of women's liberation, Rank averred that this kind of fear was most typical of women.
'DEATH FEAR'
The opposite fear Rank called the "death fear." This is the fear of being totally absorbed by the other, the fear of losing one's self and one's autonomy, the fear of having one's independence taken away. This, said Rank, is the fear most associated with men, for they seek to keep the back door open to beat a hasty retreat in case the relationship becomes too intimate.
ONE PARADOX OF COURAGE. A curious paradox characteristic of every kind of courage here confronts us, according to May. It is the seeming contradiction that we must be fully committed, but we must also be aware at the same time that we might possibly be wrong. This dialectic relationship between conviction and doubt is characteristic of the highest types of courage, and gives the lie to the simplistic definitions that identify courage with mere growth.
CREATIVE COURAGE. This brings us to the most important kind of courage of all. Whereas moral courage is the righting of wrongs, creative courage, in contrast, is the discovering of new forms, new symbols, new patterns on which a new society can be built. Every profession can and does require some creative courage. In our day, technology and engineering, diplomacy, business, and certainly teaching, all of these professions and scores of others are in the midst of radical change and require courageous persons to appreciate and direct this change. Mayo says the need for creative courage is in direct proportion to the degree of change the profession is undergoing.
'All excellent things are as difficult as they are rare'
"The mind's intellectual love of God is part of the infinite love by which God loves himself."
-- BENEDICT DE SPINOZA
By Alex P. Vidal
Benedict (Baruch) de Spinoza came from a Jewish family who had fled to Holland from Portugal to escape the oppression of the Catholic Church. His whole life was to be subject to religious persecution.
He believed that Christianity and Judaism were kept alive by rigid dogma and ritual. He denied that the Bible was inspired by God down to the last letter, saying that when we read the Bible we must continually bear in mind the period in which it was written.
He proposed "critical" reading, which revealed a number of inconsistencies in the texts.
NATURE
Spinoza said that everything is nature. He identified nature with God, saying that God is all, and all is God. This is called pantheism. To Spinoza, God did not create the world in order to stand outside it. God is the world.
So it follows that all our thoughts are also God's or nature's thoughts. There is only one God, one nature, or one Substance.
His philosophy is notoriously hard to understand. He was influenced by Rene Descartes but rejected his distinction of thought and matter as two separate substances, believing there was only one.
Everything that exists can be reduced to one single reality which he simply called Substance.
PASSIONS
Spinoza said that it was our passions--such as ambition and lust--which prevent us from achieving true happiness and harmony, but that if we recognize that everything happens from necessity, we can achieve an intuitive understanding of nature as a whole.
We can come to realize with crystal clarity that everything is One.
The goal is to comprehend everything that exists in an all-embracing perception. Only then will we achieve true happiness and contentment.
This was what Spinoza called seeing everything "sub specie aeternitatis," which means to see everything from the perspective of eternity.
-- BENEDICT DE SPINOZA
By Alex P. Vidal
Benedict (Baruch) de Spinoza came from a Jewish family who had fled to Holland from Portugal to escape the oppression of the Catholic Church. His whole life was to be subject to religious persecution.
He believed that Christianity and Judaism were kept alive by rigid dogma and ritual. He denied that the Bible was inspired by God down to the last letter, saying that when we read the Bible we must continually bear in mind the period in which it was written.
He proposed "critical" reading, which revealed a number of inconsistencies in the texts.
NATURE
Spinoza said that everything is nature. He identified nature with God, saying that God is all, and all is God. This is called pantheism. To Spinoza, God did not create the world in order to stand outside it. God is the world.
So it follows that all our thoughts are also God's or nature's thoughts. There is only one God, one nature, or one Substance.
His philosophy is notoriously hard to understand. He was influenced by Rene Descartes but rejected his distinction of thought and matter as two separate substances, believing there was only one.
Everything that exists can be reduced to one single reality which he simply called Substance.
PASSIONS
Spinoza said that it was our passions--such as ambition and lust--which prevent us from achieving true happiness and harmony, but that if we recognize that everything happens from necessity, we can achieve an intuitive understanding of nature as a whole.
We can come to realize with crystal clarity that everything is One.
The goal is to comprehend everything that exists in an all-embracing perception. Only then will we achieve true happiness and contentment.
This was what Spinoza called seeing everything "sub specie aeternitatis," which means to see everything from the perspective of eternity.
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
'The mind is a blank piece of paper'
"Wherever law ends, tyranny begins." JOHN LOCKE
By Alex P. Vidal
ONE of the British Empiricists, John Locke, lived at a time of great scientific discovery and political upheaval.
He was to become deeply involved in, and affected by, both.
Locke's claim is that all thoughts and ideas issue from what we have taken in through the senses. Before we perceive anything, the mind is a tabula rasa or an empty slate, as bare and empty as a blackboard before the teacher arrives in the classroom.
But then we begin to sense things.
We see the world around us, we smell, taste, feel and hear.
And nobody does this more intensely than an infant. In this way what Locke called "simple ideas of sense" arises.
But the mind does not just passively receive information from outside it.
ACTIVITY
Some activity happens in the mind as well.
The single-sense ideas are worked on by thinking, reasoning, believing and doubting, thus giving rise to what he calls "reflection."
So he distinguished between "sensation" and "reflection."
The mind is not merely a passive receiver.
It classifies and processes all sensations as they come streaming in.
Locke (1632-1704) spoke out for intellectual liberty and tolerance.
He was also preoccupied with equality of the sexes, maintaining that the subjugation of women to men was "man-made."
Therefore, it could be altered.
He had a great influence on John Stuart Mill, who, in turn, had a key role in the struggle for equality of the sexes.
LIBERAL
Locke was a forerunner of many liberal ideas which came into full flower later, during the French Enlightenment in the 18th century.
It was he who first argued for the principle of division of powers, by which the power of the state is divided between different institutions: the legislative power, or elected representatives; the judicial power, or law of courts; and the executive power, or the government.
Locke rejected many of the ideas of the other great Empiricist, Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), who believed in a powerful monarchy and that man has no right to rebel and break the "social contract."
By Alex P. Vidal
ONE of the British Empiricists, John Locke, lived at a time of great scientific discovery and political upheaval.
He was to become deeply involved in, and affected by, both.
Locke's claim is that all thoughts and ideas issue from what we have taken in through the senses. Before we perceive anything, the mind is a tabula rasa or an empty slate, as bare and empty as a blackboard before the teacher arrives in the classroom.
But then we begin to sense things.
We see the world around us, we smell, taste, feel and hear.
And nobody does this more intensely than an infant. In this way what Locke called "simple ideas of sense" arises.
But the mind does not just passively receive information from outside it.
ACTIVITY
Some activity happens in the mind as well.
The single-sense ideas are worked on by thinking, reasoning, believing and doubting, thus giving rise to what he calls "reflection."
So he distinguished between "sensation" and "reflection."
The mind is not merely a passive receiver.
It classifies and processes all sensations as they come streaming in.
Locke (1632-1704) spoke out for intellectual liberty and tolerance.
He was also preoccupied with equality of the sexes, maintaining that the subjugation of women to men was "man-made."
Therefore, it could be altered.
He had a great influence on John Stuart Mill, who, in turn, had a key role in the struggle for equality of the sexes.
LIBERAL
Locke was a forerunner of many liberal ideas which came into full flower later, during the French Enlightenment in the 18th century.
It was he who first argued for the principle of division of powers, by which the power of the state is divided between different institutions: the legislative power, or elected representatives; the judicial power, or law of courts; and the executive power, or the government.
Locke rejected many of the ideas of the other great Empiricist, Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), who believed in a powerful monarchy and that man has no right to rebel and break the "social contract."
Our 'Missing Link'
"Man with all his noble qualities...without his godlike intellect which has penetrated into the movements and constitution of the Solar System...still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin." CHARLES DARWIN
By Alex P. Vidal
HERE'S another reason why we should prolong our patience and should not easily blow our top over mundane matters; why, in my personal philosophy, I categorically state that "my patience is longer than the San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge."
For a long time after Charles Darwin stated his theory of evolution, scientists searched for fossils which would trace man's ancestry back to the apes.
Around 1890, for example, DuBois' discovery of the bones of the Java ape-man was hailed as the finding of the so-called missing link.
Now we realize that man did not evolve from apes as we know them today.
Now we realize that man did not evolve from apes as we know them today.
Man and apes are separate branches of the evolutionary tree, and the common ancestor from which they sprang is known.
Since man is the only animal who writes books and figures out systems of classifications, it may be only natural that he gives himself a special place in the scheme of things.
Man had to put himself in the subphylum Vertebrates, and the class Mammals, for he is clearly a mammal.
He is also in the order Primates, along with the many kinds of apes and monkeys because of his hands fitted for grasping and his flat fingernails.
He is also in the order Primates, along with the many kinds of apes and monkeys because of his hands fitted for grasping and his flat fingernails.
But man is given a family all to himself--the Hominidae.
In this family there is but one genus today, Homo, and but one species, Homo sapiens.
Thus the classification of man shows how far apart he is from even his nearest relatives, the other Primates.
In this family there is but one genus today, Homo, and but one species, Homo sapiens.
Thus the classification of man shows how far apart he is from even his nearest relatives, the other Primates.
In other words, scientists now believe that man's development began before any monkeys or apes existed on earth; man and the monkeys branched off, about one million years ago, from some common ancestor.
HISTORY
It is a simple matter for us to supply our date and place of birth because it is quite recent and because accurate records are kept in modern times.
But the only way we can supply this information about ancient man is from a study of his fossil remains, and from the tools and other implements (called artifacts) which he left behind.
But the only way we can supply this information about ancient man is from a study of his fossil remains, and from the tools and other implements (called artifacts) which he left behind.
On this basis, man's (or his "almost human" ancestors') appearance on earth is placed at about one million years ago.
His place of birth is thought by many to have been in Asia, but some scientists believe that he had his beginnings in Africa.
His place of birth is thought by many to have been in Asia, but some scientists believe that he had his beginnings in Africa.
Only about 300 complete or incomplete human fossils of the apelike men have been discovered.
This small number of remains is the result of several factors.
The very first humans probably lived in forests where any dead body was immediately destroyed by other animals or by bacterial action.
This small number of remains is the result of several factors.
The very first humans probably lived in forests where any dead body was immediately destroyed by other animals or by bacterial action.
Later on, when burial customs developed, bodies were buried where decay set in easily.
PRIMITIVE
It is really impossible to state just when man became man, that is, when the earliest man-like animals could be described as true human species.
However, the following may be considered the most primitive types, according to the High Points in Biology:
However, the following may be considered the most primitive types, according to the High Points in Biology:
JAVA APE-MAN. This fossil turned up in a river bed in Java, Indonesia. The actual remains of skull, thigh bone and teeth indicate that he had a narrow forehead, heavy beetling (overhanging) brows, very little chin, and was in other ways ape-like in appearance. He walked erect, was about 5 feet and 6 inches tall, and lived about half a million years ago. Java man, by the way, is classified in a different genus, Pithecanthropus.
PEKING MAN. Discovered in 1926 in Peking, China. This man was similar in structure and appearance to Java man and probably lived about the same time. By 1940, 26 million human fossils had been dug up together with various stone implements, pothole fireplaces, and burned remains of animal bones. Indications are that Peking man had learned the use of fire and how to make primitive tools.
HEIDELBERG MAN. Only the lower jaw and teeth have been found. The teeth are definitely human, but the chin is ape-like in appearance.
HOAX
Two fragments of a skull and jawbone called as "Piltdown Man" were claimed to have been discovered in England in 1912.
This "man" appeared to have a forehead that was distinctly human, but with apelike teeth and jaw.
It was revealed that the "find" was a hoax, constructed from parts of a human skull and an ape's jaw.
This incident shows how uncertain our knowledge of man's beginnings is.
This "man" appeared to have a forehead that was distinctly human, but with apelike teeth and jaw.
It was revealed that the "find" was a hoax, constructed from parts of a human skull and an ape's jaw.
This incident shows how uncertain our knowledge of man's beginnings is.
The prehistoric ancestors of ours lived in caves.
They were called as "Cave Men."
Although the first fossils were discovered in Gibraltar in 1848, it wasn't until more of them turned up in the Neanderthal Valley in Germany in 1856 that scientists recognized the existence of this distinct type of human.
They were called as "Cave Men."
Although the first fossils were discovered in Gibraltar in 1848, it wasn't until more of them turned up in the Neanderthal Valley in Germany in 1856 that scientists recognized the existence of this distinct type of human.
Fossils of the cave men have been found in great abundance all over Europe, as well as in Asia and parts of Africa. Apparently, this group of men known as "Neanderthal Men," lived between 25,000 and 50,000 years ago.
They were under five and one-half feet in height, stocky, large-chested, and had a large head and beetling brows.
They were under five and one-half feet in height, stocky, large-chested, and had a large head and beetling brows.
Thousands of implements and weapons fashioned by this group have been discovered.
Bones and flint were the principal materials used for these objects.
Neanderthal man is the first man to put in the genus Homo, but he is considered to be a distinct species from modern man.
Bones and flint were the principal materials used for these objects.
Neanderthal man is the first man to put in the genus Homo, but he is considered to be a distinct species from modern man.
MODERN
Neanderthal man settled in Europe and remained there for thousands of years.
Then, about 25,000 years ago, a new group of individuals appeared and displaced Neanderthal man in Europe. Probably coming in from Asia or Africa, this new, Cro-Magnon man soon enjoyed existence as the most powerful and important species on earth.
The first skeletons of this type were found in 1868 in the caves of Cro-Magnon, France.
Then, about 25,000 years ago, a new group of individuals appeared and displaced Neanderthal man in Europe. Probably coming in from Asia or Africa, this new, Cro-Magnon man soon enjoyed existence as the most powerful and important species on earth.
The first skeletons of this type were found in 1868 in the caves of Cro-Magnon, France.
Cro-Magnon Man was so similar to man today, that both are in the same species, Homo sapiens.
It seems likely that Cro-Magnon man is a direct ancestor of many European groups today.
It seems likely that Cro-Magnon man is a direct ancestor of many European groups today.
He averaged over six feet in height, walked erect, and was physically well built.
He had a high forehead, and the size of the skull case indicates that a large brain was present.
He had a high forehead, and the size of the skull case indicates that a large brain was present.
This group of men were skilled toolmakers.
They worked with bone, horn, ivory, and flint and created a wide variety of fine, delicate tools and weapons.
Evidence of their artistic ability is shown in the many drawings and paintings left behind them on their cave walls, as well as by the remains of many models and bone carvings.
They worked with bone, horn, ivory, and flint and created a wide variety of fine, delicate tools and weapons.
Evidence of their artistic ability is shown in the many drawings and paintings left behind them on their cave walls, as well as by the remains of many models and bone carvings.
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