200 THE DESCENT OF MAN. Part I. 



At the period and place, whenever and wherever it 

 may have been, when man first lost his hairy covering, 

 he probably inhabited a hot country; and this would 

 have been favourable for a 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 Catarhine stock ; but this may have occurred 

 at an epoch as remote as the Eocene period ; for the 

 higher apes had diverged from the lower apes as 

 early as the Upper Miocene period, as 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 under favourable circumstances 

 be modified : 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 

 within the same period some of the co-descendants of 

 the same species may be not at all changed, some a 

 little, and some greatly changed. 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 ad- 

 vanced 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, convinced 

 by general reasons, believe in the general principle 

 of evolution. Breaks incessantly 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 

 Lemuridas — between the elephant and in a more 

 striking manner between the Ornithorhynchus or 



