on this subject; for two or three anthropomorphous apes, one the
Dryopithecus (17. Dr. C. Forsyth Major, Sur les Singes fossiles
trouves en Italie: Soc. Ital. des Sc. Nat. tom. xv. 1872.) of
Lartet, nearly as large as a man, and closely allied to Hylobates,
existed in Europe during the Miocene age; and since so remote a period
the earth has certainly undergone many great revolutions, and there has
been ample time for migration on the largest scale.
At the period and place, whenever and wherever it was, when man first
lost his hairy covering, he probably inhabited a hot country; a
circumstance favourable for the frugiferous diet on which, judging from
analogy, he subsisted. We are far from knowing how long ago it was when
man first diverged from the Catarrhine stock; but it may have occurred
at an epoch as remote as the Eocene period; for that the higher apes
had diverged from the lower apes as early as the Upper Miocene period
is shewn by the existence of the Dryopithecus. We are also quite
ignorant at how rapid a rate organisms, whether high or low in the
scale, may be modified under favourable circumstances; we know,
however, that some have retained the same form during an enormous lapse
of time. From what we see going on under domestication, we learn that
some of the co-descendants of the same species may be not at all, some
a little, and some greatly changed, all within the same period. Thus it
may have been with man, who has undergone a great amount of
modification in certain characters in comparison with the higher apes.
The great break in the organic chain between man and his nearest
allies, which cannot be bridged over by any extinct or living species,
has often been advanced as a grave objection to the belief that man is
descended from some lower form; but this objection will not appear of
much weight to those who, from general reasons, believe in the general
principle of evolution. Breaks often occur in all parts of the series,
some being wide, sharp and defined, others less so in various degrees;
as between the orang and its nearest allies between the Tarsius and the
other Lemuridae between the elephant, and in a more striking manner
between the Ornithorhynchus or Echidna, and all other mammals. But
these breaks depend merely on the number of related forms which have
become extinct. At some future period, not very distant as measured by
centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly
exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. At the
same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has
173