1 5 6 The Descent of Man. Part 1 



and closely allied to Hylobates, existed in Europe during the 

 Miocsne 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 

 Catarhine 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 princijDle of evolution. 

 Breaks often occur in all parts of the series, some being wide, 

 sharjD 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 Echidna, and a^l 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 anthro- 

 pomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked, 18 

 will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his 

 nearest allies wall then be wider, for it w r ill intervene between 

 man in a more civilised state, as Ave may hope, even than the 

 Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now 

 between the negro or Australian and the gorilla. 



18 « Anthropologic.-)! Review,' April, 1867, p. 236. 



