III. 



ON SOME FOSSIL KEMAINS OF MAN. 



I have endeavoured to show, in the preceding 

 Essay, that the Antheopini, or Man Family, form 

 a very well-defined group of the Primates, between 

 which and the immediately following Family, the 

 Cataehini, there is, in the existing world, the 

 same entire absence of any transitional form or 

 connecting link, as between the Cataehini and 

 Platyehini. 



It is a commonly received doctrine, however, 

 that the structural intervals between the various 

 existing modifications of organic beings may be 

 diminished, or even obliterated, if we take into 

 account the long and varied succession of animals 

 and plants which have preceded these now living 

 and which are known to us only by their fossilized 

 remains. How far this doctrine is well based, how 

 far, on the other hand, as our knowledge at pres- 

 ent stands, it is an overstatement of the real facts 

 of the case, and an exaggeration of the conclusions 

 fairly deducible from them, are points of grave im- 

 portance, but into the discussion of which I do not, 



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