Page:Fruits and Farinacea the Proper Food of Man.djvu/70

64

determinate relation to its mental and bodily nature or not, it is clearly demonstrable that animals approximate humanity in form and feature very nearly in the precise ratio to their departure from the practice of flesh-eating. And if all this is a mere accident in the order of nature, it is certainly a most strange and wonderful accident!

But in order to complete the illustration, let us glance at specimens of the human race more nearly resembling, in dietetic habits, the several classes of animals we have been considering.

In Fig. 17 (p. 68) is seen a specimen of humanity as nearly carnivorous, perhaps, as can be found in this age of the world. His or its manner of life is very much after the ape or orang-outang style, and his principal food is the flesh of the opossum, which he catches by climbing the trees.

A single grade above the Australian in bodily symmetry and mental endowment, are the Tikopians, (Fig. 18, p. 69,) who inhabit the small island Tikopia. (See Pritchard's Natural History of Man.) In dietetic habits they resemble more nearly the omnivorous animals than the majority of the Australians, as they employ a greater proportion of vegetable food.

In Fig. 19 (p. 70) is seen a representation of a Kaffir of Bechuana, belonging to a race making a nearer approach, in cranial as well as general development, to the more cultivated tribes of the human family.