xvm PAST HISTORY 359 



those used to substantiate the general doctrine of descent. 

 For the Descent of Man was but the expansion of a 

 chapter in the Origin of Species ; the arguments used to 

 prove the origin of animal from animal were adapted to 

 rationalise the ascent of man. 



(1) Physiological. The bodily life of man is like that 

 of monkeys ; both are subject to the same diseases ; 

 various human traits, such as gestures and expressions, are 

 paralleled among the " brutes " ; and children born during 

 famine or in disease are often sadly ape-like. A remarkable 

 physiological method of demonstrating blood-relationship 

 by observing the reactions when two kinds of blood are 

 mingled holds true in regard to man and the higher apes. 



(2) Morphological. --The structure of man is like that 

 of the anthropoid apes, none of his distinctive characters 

 except that of a heavy brain being momentous, and 

 there are about eighty vestigial structures in the muscular, 

 skeletal, and other systems. 



(3) Historical.- -There is little certainty in regard to the 

 fossil remains of prehistoric man, but some of these 

 suggest more primitive types, while the facts known 

 about ancient life show at least that there has been 

 progress along certain lines. Moreover, there is the 

 progress seen in each individual life, from the apparently 

 simple egg-cell to the minute embryo, which is fashioned 

 within the womb into the likeness of a child, and being 

 born grows from stage to stage, all in a manner which it 

 is hard to understand if man be not the outcome of a 

 natural evolution. 



As to the antiquity of the human race, big-brained 

 men lived in Europe in the later stages of the Ice Age, 

 and there are indications of human activity (implements) 

 in Pliocene times. No fossils of the modern type of man 

 have been found older than early Pleistocene. It is 

 maintained by Prof. Arthur Keith * and others that the 

 Neanderthal type (Homo neanderthalensis), co-existing 

 with the modern type in mid-Pleistocene times, repre- 

 sented a distinct species, perhaps diverging from the 

 main human stem in the early Pliocene, and not in the 



1 Keith, The Antiquity of Man, London, 1915. 



