AMERICAN ZOOLOGISTS AND EVOLUTION. 189 



garded each, language and each race as substantially primordial, and 

 ascribed their resemblances to a similarity iu the mental organization 

 of the races. 



This extract illustrates the extremity to which one is logically 

 driven if he accepts the hypothesis of special creation, and these 

 words are quoted, not with the belief that at the present time they 

 would have been uttered, but as illustrating the necessary admissions 

 with the theory of plurality of origin. In precisely the same man- 

 ner that Whitney, Miiller, and other eminent philologists, have shown 

 the outgrowth of present existing languages from primitive forms 

 of language, so science is prepared to show the outgrowth of pres- 

 ent men from primitive forms of animals. Agassiz was bitterly as- 

 sailed by the Church for the bold attitude he assumed regarding the 

 plurality of origin of the human race, though now that science will 

 show that after all man has originated from a common centre, it seems 

 no better satisfied. The facts bearing on man's lowly origin have 

 been fully contributed by American students, and, as all intelligent 

 men understand the bearing of these facts on the question, it is only 

 necessary to allude to them here. If man has really been derived 

 from an ancestor in common with the ape, we must expect to show 

 1. That in his earlier stages he recalls certain persistent characters 

 in the apes; 2. That the more ancient man will reveal more ape-like 

 features than the present existing man ; and, 3. That certain character- 

 istics pertaining to early men still persist in the inferior races of men. 



Prof. Wyman l points out certain resemblances between the limbs 

 of the human embryo and the permanent condition of the limbs of 

 lower animals. In some human embryos about an inch in length he 

 found that the great-toe was shorter than the others, and, instead of 

 being parallel to them, projected at an angle from the side of the 

 foot, thus corresponding with the permanent condition of this part 

 in the Quadrumana. 



In some observations made on the skeleton of a Hottentot, Prof. 

 Wyman 2 calls attention to the complete ossification of the nasal 

 bones, no trace of a suture remaining. This was more noticeable as 

 the individual was young, and the other bones were immature, and 

 had an interest " in connection with the fact that the nasal bones are 

 coossified at an early period in the monkeys and before the completion 

 of the first dentition in gorillas and chimpanzees." Careful measure- 

 ments of the pelvis also revealed quadrumanous features, though " the 

 resemblance is trifling in comparison with the differences." 



In a study of the crania, Wyman 3 found differences in the rela- 

 tive position of the foramen magnum. In the North American In- 

 dian this opening was farther back than in the negro, while some cra- 

 nia from Kauai presented this opening still farther back than in the 



1 " Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History," vol. x., p. 185. 

 8 Ibid., vol. ix., p. 352. 3 Ibid., vol. xi., p. 447. 



