THE ORIGIN OF THE HUMAN BODY 317 



normally occurs." (Loc. cit, pp. 456, 457.) Whether the 

 thighbone really belonged to an erectly walking animal has 

 not yet been definitely settled. To decide this matter, it 

 would be necessary to apply the Walkhoff x-ray method, which 

 determines the mode of progression from the arrangement of the 

 bone fibers in frontal, or other, sections from the femur. This 

 test, however, has not hitherto been made. Nor should the 

 significance of the fact that the thighbone was found at 

 a distance of some fifty feet away from the skull-cap 

 be overlooked, seeing that this fact destroys, once and for 

 all, any possibility of certainty that both belonged to the same 

 animal. 



In conclusion, therefore, we may say that the remains of 

 Pithecanthropus are so scanty, fragmentary, and doubtful, as 

 to preclude a reliable verdict on their true significance. As 

 Virchow pointed out, the determination of their correct taxo- 

 nomic position is impossible, in the absence of a complete 

 skeleton. Meanwhile, the most probable opinion is that they 

 represent the remains of a giant ape of the hylobatic type. 

 In other words, the Pithecanthropus belongs to the genealogical 

 tree of the apes, and not to that of man. In fact, he has been 

 excluded from the direct line of human descent by Schwalbe, 

 Alsberg, Kollmann, Haacke, Hubrecht, Klaatsch, and all the 

 foremost protagonists of the theory of collateral descent. (Cf. 

 Dwight, op. cit., ch. VIII.) Professor McGregor's series consist- 

 ing of an ape, the Pithecanthropus, Homo neanderthalensis, and 

 the Cro-Magnon Man fails as an argument, not only for the 

 general reason we have discussed in our third chapter, but 

 also for two special reasons, namely: (1) that he completely ig- 

 nores the chronological question of the comparative age of the 

 fossils in his series, and (2) that he has neglected to take into 

 account the consideration of the body-brain ratio. For as 

 Prof. G. Grant MacCurdy puts it, "We must distinguish be- 

 tween relative (cranial) capacity and absolute capacity." 

 (Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1909, p. 575.) In justice to Professor 

 McGregor, however, it should be noted that he proposes his 



