344 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



have been studied by almost all the leading anatomists in 

 Europe. All are agreed that they indicate an animal bearing a 

 close resemblance to men and apes, but be3^ond this opinions 

 are no longer in harmony : some regard Pithecanthropus as 

 an ape with certain human characters, others as a man with 

 evident simian characters ; others again, and in particular Dr. 

 Dubois himself, regard it as a connecting-link, standing mid- 

 way between man and the higher apes. The suggestion has 

 even been made that the remains are those of a microcephalic 

 idiot, or again of a monster begotten of human and simian 

 parents. 



Disregarding those opinions which have little of probability 

 to recommend them, let us review the question in broad outline. 



That which distinguishes man from all the beasts of the field 

 is the power and complexity of his mind, 1 and whether the brain 

 be a dream of the mind or the mind a dream of the brain, the 

 two are certainly associated in a manner as close as it is in- 

 explicable. Thus the chief interest in the Trinil fossil attaches 

 to the skull-cap or brain-pan. As regards both its general form, 

 and all those niceties of modelling which require the trained 

 eye of an anatomist for their appreciation, this is certainly more 

 simian than human. Prof. J. D. Cunningham recognises many 

 features which remind him of the gibbon ; Prof. Schwalbe sees 

 more resemblance to the chimpanzee ; and, though neither of 

 these authorities is inclined to push his comparisons too far, 

 yet they are both agreed in asserting that the affinities indicated 

 by the form of the skull-cap are on the side of the anthropoid 

 ape rather than man. The forehead of Pithecanthropus is even 

 more receding than that of the chimpanzee, the occiput scarcely 

 less so, and the altitudinal index, i.e. the ratio of the height of 

 the skull-cap to its length, is almost the same in both. The value 

 of this index in Pithecanthropus is 34*2 : in the lowest known 

 human cranium it rises to 40*4, while in the average European 

 it is no less than 52. 2 



1 In these days of triumphant athleticism this sounds like a startling 

 paradox : even in our Universities the power to kick a football through a goal or to 

 row a boat to victory would almost certainly be considered a criterion of at least 

 equal value. 



2 Less importance is now to be attached to these numbers, since it has been 

 shown that the base-line from which the measurements are made is not trustworthy. 

 See Sollas " On the Cranial and Facial Characters of the Neandertal Race," Phil. 

 Trans. 1907, ser. B, vol. 199, p. 294. 



