320 TOWARDS THE HUMAN FORM 



In the Eocene layers of Wasatsch in North America Cope 

 discovered in Anaptomorphus the first link in the chain con- 

 necting the Lemurs with the Monkeys. Analogous animals 

 first multiplied in North America, only to leave it and migrate 

 towards South America, where they originated the agile 

 and prehensile-tailed Monkeys (the Sajous) inhabiting that 

 region. Lemurs came to Europe about the same time, and, 

 probably on account of the cooling of the temperature, 

 evidently considered that the safest refuge was in their present 

 homes — India, tropical Africa, and Madagascar. Lemurs 

 and Sajous are even found associated in the Eocene 

 deposits of the Fayum, where the former are represented by 

 Parapithecus and the latter by Mceropithecus. But, side by side 

 with these, palaeontologists were very much surprised to find 

 an anthropomorphous Ape, Propliopithecus hceckeli, not far 

 removed from a Gibbon, and no doubt related to Pithe- 

 canthropus erectus, discovered in Java by Dr. Dubois, and 

 ■certainly the direct ancestor of Pliopitheciis, discovered by 

 Lartet in the Miocene of Sansans. Thus the anthropoid 

 Apes, which were supposed to represent the final stage in the 

 evolution of the Monkeys, because they are nearest to Man, 

 are seen to go back to the very beginning of the Tertiary epoch, 

 which removes any unlikelihood of the existence of Man himself 

 at this time. Hence the Gorillas and the Chimpanzees would 

 only come after the graceful Gibbons, the most Man-like of all 

 the Apes, which are venerated in India, and the grimacing tribes 

 of tailed Monkeys of the old continents would be even more 

 recent ; Mesopithecus of Pentelicus, described by Albert Gaudry, 

 is Miocene, so that in admitting our genealogical relationship 

 with the Monkeys we need not include among our ancestors any 

 of those repulsive beings such as Hamadryas, Mandrills with 

 their streaked and variegated heads, or those other dog-headed 

 Monkeys whose grotesque faces we can see in menageries. 



On the other hand, we must recognize — however vexatious 

 to our feelings it may be — that the characteristic features of 

 Man's body are not very far removed from those of the Gibbon, 

 and that, as Lamarck has already said, it is easy to explain those 

 characters which are peculiar to him. They are almost all 

 derived from his absolute vertical posture. It is this which has 

 freed the hands from tasks other than prehension and the 

 examination of objects and the construction and manipulation 



