THE ORIGIN OF THE HUMAN BODY 345 



known palaeontologist Karl A. von Zittel reached the same con- 

 clusion. He says somewhere (probably in his "Grundzlige der 

 Palaontologie") : "Such material as this (the discovered re- 

 mains of fossil men) throws no light upon the question of race 

 and descent. All the human bones of determinable age that 

 have come down to us from the European Diluvium, as well as 

 all the skulls discovered in caves, are identified by their size, 

 shape, and capacity as belonging to Homo sapiens, and are 

 fine specimens of their kind. They do not by any means fill up 

 the gap between man and the ape." Joseph Le Conte repeats 

 the identical refrain. In the revised Fairchild edition (1903) of 

 his "Elements of Geology" we read: "The earliest men yet 

 found are in no sense connecting links between man and ape. 

 They are distinctly human." (Ch. VI, p. 638.) Replying to 

 Haeckel, who in his "Weltratsel" proclaims man's descent 

 from pithecoid primates to be an historical fact, J. Reinke, 

 the biologist of Kiel, declares: "We are merely having dust 

 thrown in our eyes when we read in a widely circulated book 

 by Ernst Haeckel the following words: That man is immedi- 

 ately descended from apes, and more remotely from a long line 

 of lower vertebrates, remains established as an indubitable 

 historic fact, fraught with important consequences.' It is 

 absurd to speak of anything as a fact when experience lends 

 it no support." ("Haeckel's Monism and Its Supporters," 

 Leipzig, 1907, p. 6.) The sum-total, in fact, of scientific 

 knowledge concerning the origin of the human body is con- 

 tained in the saying of the geologist, Sir Wm. Dawson, Presi- 

 dent of McGill University: "I know nothing about the origin 

 of man, except what I am told in the Scripture — ^that God 

 created him. I do not know anything more than that, and I 

 do not know of anyone who does." 



In view of this uncertainty and ignorance regarding the 

 origin of the human body, it is extremely unethical to strive 

 to impose the theory of man's bestial origin by the sheer 

 weight of scientific authority and prestige. Conscientious 

 scientists would never venture to abuse in such a fashion the 



