results of natural science," but to try and prove scientifically that the theory of the genealogical connection between man and beast is not a "scientific conclusion." It is more than foolish to attempt to set them at rest by asserting that S. Augustine gave an encouragement to free inquiry," when he said that "it is childish to suppose that God formed man from the dust of the earth with bodily hands and breathed on him with His throat and lips."1 As if any theologian who was worthy of the name had ever imagined that the creation of men took place in this way, and as if S. Augustine by combating such an idea had become an advocate of the "Pithecoid Theory."

2

Let us now consider the proofs for the doctrine of man's descent from the animals. Hæckel has carried back the pedigree to the monera; from these in the Silurian age the tube-hearted skulless vertebrata had developed, a class of animals whose sole survivor in the present day is the Lancelet (Amphioxus), which therefore we must regard with special veneration as the only animal now existing which can enable us to form an

1 "Theologians who are anxious about the conclusions of natural science should remember what one of the greatest of the Fathers, S. Augustine, has said about the creation of man. In his work, De Genesi (ad lit.) i. 6, c. 12, he says: "It is childish to suppose that God formed man from the dust of the earth with bodily hands;" and in another place, i. 7, c. 1 and 17, he says: "As God did not form man with bodily hands, so neither did He breathe on him from His throat and lips. . . . It is said that God breathed into man's face, because the fore part of the brain where the senses are situated is in the forehead." This is an encouragement to free inquiry, which is the more honourable to him who gave it when it is remembered at what time these words were written. Archiv für Anthr. ii. p. 340; cf. above, vol. i. p. 149.

Entstehung, p. 40 seq.; Nat. Schöpfungsgeschichte, p. 578; Anthropogenie, p. 494.

approximate conception of our earliest Silurian vertebrate ancestors.1 In the later Silurian age "man's ancestors were real sharks, or at any rate resembled them very nearly." The sharks developed into mudfish, "vertebrata which stand midway between fish and amphibia;" these into gilled Batrachia, "Amphibia like the celebrated Proteus anguineus, which inhabits the grotto of Adelsberg;" these again into tailed Batrachia, "resembling the present salamanders and newts; then in the beginning of the secondary period the beaked animals (Ornithostoma) appeared, "mammals of the lowest class resembling the beaked animals in Australia and Tasmania" (Ornithorhyncus paradoxus and Echidna hystrix); after them the Marsupialia, "resembling the kangaroos," and after them in the beginning of the tertiary period came the semi-apes (Prosimiæ), then the tailed apes (Catarrhini) with narrow noses, without cheek pouches, and with tails, and then man-like apes (Anthropoids) without tails. Formerly Hæckel asserted that the ape-like man, or primary man, resembling the woolly haired Papuan negroes but of a lower class, had developed directly from these anthropoid apes. Now he says, " Although the ancestors of the stage immediately preceding are already so nearly akin to genuine men that it is scarcely necessary to assume that an intermediate connecting stage existed, still we may consider the speechless primæval men (Alali), or ape-like men (Pithecanthropi)

1 Hæckel defends this observation in the Anthropogenie, p. 337, and he there repeats that "the Amphioxus is flesh of our flesh and blood of our blood." It is also, as he assures us twice over in the Anthropogenie (pp. 176, 298), "the most interesting of all vertebrate animals after man."

as such."

And directly afterwards he says, "There is certain proof that such primæval men without the power of speech, or ape-like men, must have preceded man possessing speech, in the results obtained by an inquiring mind from comparative philology."1

You will allow me to pass over the earlier stages of the pedigree, and only to speak of our supposed nearest relatives, the anthropoid apes. Most of the supporters of the Pithecoid theory say with Hæckel,' that man is not descended from any of the now existing kinds of apes; on the contrary, they assert that the human race is descended "from a branch of the group of Catarrhini, long ago extinct, which, under favourable conditions, probably in Southern Asia, perhaps in a continent, Lemuria, now sunk under the Indian Ocean, became by natural selection, in the Pliocene or Miocene Age, the ancestor of the human race."

Let us therefore first ascertain whether the resemblance between the bodily constitution of man and the highest class of apes now existing is great enough to make it necessary to assume scientifically that both are descended from common ancestors.

1 Nat. Schöpfungsgeschichte, p. 590; Anthropogenie, p. 491.

2 Entstehung, p. 42; Nat. Schöpfungsgeschichte, p. 577. Hæckel is not right in saying that it is self-evident that none of the apes now existing could be the ancestors of the human race, or in assuring us that this opinion had never been held by thoughtful supporters of the theory of descent, but had been attributed to them by their thoughtless opponents (see also Virchow, Menschen und Appenschädel, p. 22). Schaafhausen says (see Archiv für Anthr. ii. 336): "Several zoologists have asserted recently that man is not descended from any of the existing species of apes, and they assume without sufficient reason that both apes and men had a common ancestor." He thinks that possibly this is done in order to make the relationship less repulsive, as fancy might paint these unknown apes in more attractive colours.

H. Burmeister says, "Man is distinguished from the ape in his bodily form, by the greater development of brain, by the structure of the skeleton, which is intended. for an upright posture, by the greater development of the pelvis, and by the striking typical difference in the extremities, for whereas in man the fore extremities, never the hinder, are the only true hands, in the ape, on the contrary, the hinder extremities are hands, and the fore extremities are more like paws, sometimes even having no thumbs."

I will let Vogt give us a commentary on these assertions. I shall keep to his own words 2 all through, of course leaving out as far as is possible the bad jokes and other irrelevant scurrilities with which he interlards his style.

Man is absolutely distinguished from the ape by his upright position which the ape only assumes, or is taught to assume, occasionally, but which he does not possess as a natural bodily quality. Man's arms and hands, which hang unfettered by his side, are left unhindered in their movements, and are suited to the several actions for which they are required by being detached from the ground, and by being entirely freed. from the necessity of serving as supports to the body. On the other hand, even in the most manlike apes, the forehand is used for climbing just as much as the hinder; if the ape is moving on even ground, he always after a few steps supports himself on his closed hand, and by this means assumes a position which is more or less horizontal, according to the length of his arms. The arm in man is comparatively shorter, the leg longer 1 Geschichte der Schöpfung. p. 371. 2 Vorlesungen, i. 169 seq. VOL. II.

I

In

and stronger than in the ape. If man is put in the position which is natural to a quadruped, he is obliged to straighten out his arms, and to bend his knees considerably if the vertebral column is to be brought into a horizontal position parallel with the ground. apes, on the other hand, either both limbs are equally long, or the leg is shorter than the arm, which in some apes is of immense length. A man standing quite upright can touch the middle of the upper part of his thigh with his fingers, the chimpanzee can touch the knee-cap, the gorilla can reach even farther, the orang can, without bending, even touch his ankles. If we look at the proportions of the different parts of the arm the difference is even more apparent. Supposing the length of the bone of the upper part of the arm to be 100, the length of the forearm is 75.5 in white men, in the chimpanzee 908; the length of the hand in the white man is 52.9, in the chimpanzee 737; in the other apes, especially in the orang, these differences are still more striking. The upper part of the arm is therefore comparatively shorter in the ape than in man, the forearm and hand longer. The difference in the leg is still more pronounced. If we take the length of the thigh bone as 100, we find that in the European the shinbone is 82.5, the foot 52.9; while in the chimpanzee the shinbone is reckoned at 80, and the foot 72.8. Here then it is the extremity which reaches a far greater length. But look at the difference between this extremity and the human foot. It is a real hand. The fingers no doubt are rather shorter and broader, the thumb larger and thicker than on the forehand, but still it is a real hand with a flat under surface, well