202 WHAT IS LIFE 



are, did not figure in the ancestral history of man."^ 

 For on closer examination there is found lack of 

 similarity between man and apes where, on the 

 theory of descent or of near relationship, similarity 

 should be found. Thus, for example: It is a remark- 

 able fact that there is utter dissimilarity between the 

 arrangement of the growth of hair of the human 

 head and the head of apes.^ 



Again: The hand — next to man's superior brain, 

 his long infancy and his erect carriage, his most 

 characteristically human possession — resembles the 

 hand of the ape, yet a comparison of finger-prints 

 and hand-prints of man and ape has shown surprising 

 dissimilarity between the human hand and the ape- 

 hand. As everyone knows, the finger-tips of the 

 human hand are marked with whorls. Experimenters 

 found that the monkey -hand has the whorls on the 

 mounds, and the finger-tips are marked with straight 

 lines. 



To say that the general theory of descent, including 

 of course man's descent, today is commonly accepted 

 by the world of science is but to state a well-known 

 fact. One therefore might suppose that the foremost 

 students of the problem hold the opinion that the 



^ Morphology and Anthropology, I, 238. 



• See Gustav Fritsch, "Die Anthropoiden und die Abstammung des 

 Menschen," Zeitschrift fiir Ethnologie, L, 1. 



