monkeys

61:1.945,000,000 years ago the con­ti­nen­tal back­bones were el­e­vated in as­so­ci­a­tion with a very gen­eral sink­ing of the coast lines. Mam­malian life was evolv­ing rapidly. A small rep­til­ian, egg-lay­ing type of mam­mal flour­ished, and the an­ces­tors of the later kan­ga­roos roamed Aus­tralia. Soon there were small horses, fleet-footed rhinoceroses, tapirs with pro­boscises, prim­i­tive pigs, squir­rels, lemurs, opos­sums, and sev­eral tribes of mon­key­like an­i­mals. They were all small, prim­i­tive, and best suited to liv­ing among the forests of the moun­tain re­gions. A large os­trich­like land bird de­vel­oped to a height of ten feet and laid an egg nine by thir­teen inches. These were the an­ces­tors of the later gi­gan­tic pas­sen­ger birds that were so highly in­tel­li­gent, and that one­time trans­ported hu­man be­ings through the air.

61:3.12The bi­o­logic de­vel­op­ments of this pe­riod con­tributed much to­ward the set­ting of the stage for the sub­se­quent ap­pear­ance of man. In cen­tral Asia the true types of both the prim­i­tive mon­key and the go­rilla evolved, hav­ing a com­mon an­ces­tor, now ex­tinct. But nei­ther of these species is con­cerned in the line of liv­ing be­ings which were, later on, to be­come the an­ces­tors of the hu­man race.

61:4.4In gen­eral, the life of the pre­ced­ing pe­riod con­tin­ued to evolve and spread. The cat fam­ily dom­i­nated the an­i­mal life, and ma­rine life was al­most at a stand­still. Many of the horses were still three-toed, but the mod­ern types were ar­riv­ing; lla­mas and gi­raf­fe­like camels min­gled with the horses on the graz­ing plains. The gi­raffe ap­peared in Africa, hav­ing just as long a neck then as now. In South Amer­ica sloths, ar­madil­los, anteaters, and the South Amer­i­can type of prim­i­tive mon­keys evolved. Be­fore the con­ti­nents were fi­nally iso­lated, those mas­sive an­i­mals, the mastodons, mi­grated ev­ery­where ex­cept to Aus­tralia.

88:1.5When an­i­mals be­came fe­tishes, there en­sued the taboos on eat­ing the flesh of the fe­tish an­i­mal. Apes and mon­keys, be­cause of re­sem­blance to man, early be­came fe­tish an­i­mals; later, snakes, birds, and swine were also sim­i­larly re­garded. At one time the cow was a fe­tish, the milk be­ing taboo while the exc­reta were highly es­teemed. The ser­pent was revered in Pales­tine, es­pe­cially by the Phoeni­cians, who, along with the Jews, con­sid­ered it to be the mouth­piece of evil spir­its. Even many mod­erns be­lieve in the charm pow­ers of rep­tiles. From Ara­bia on through In­dia to the snake dance of the Mo­qui tribe of red men the ser­pent has been revered.

62:3.12And 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.