98 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



gestation prolonged, and correlated changes took place in the 

 skeleton of the mother. The internal carotid overtook the 

 external in regard to size, and the face did not grow at the 

 same rate as the brain. It is easier to explain all these sequences 

 if we hold that incipient speech marked the little protoman, 

 and that it was a triumph of peace. A parrot has not the 

 human organs, but it can " articulate " very distinctly, and it 

 seems more probable that the American picture-language drifted 

 round the world from the Nile, rather than a gorilla-man began 

 to think and talk on his own initiative. 



Objections to this Theory 



In conclusion, the way must be briefly indicated by which 

 a number of obvious objections may be met. 



In favour of the recent separation of man and ape the baby 

 is cited. He sometimes is clever at hanging by his hands soon 

 after birth, and he walks at first on the outside of the foot, 

 the head of the astragalus being directed more inwards, and 

 its neck is longer than in the adult. The lower races of mankind 

 are more ape-like in having shorter thighs, no waist, ridges on 

 the bones of the skull, and other points less marked in Euro- 

 peans. Similarity in mentality is also seen between the orang 

 and the Mongolian, and so forth. 



The reply seems to be that descent from a common ancestor 

 is undoubted, but the genetic relationship need not be recent. 

 Mere increase of size from a small animal to man may have 

 occupied only a few hundred thousand years. Hence if there 

 were large apes in the Miocene these were not necessarily in 

 the direct line of the human race. For the structural pattern 

 and similarity of function are essentially conservative and slow 

 of change. No biologist would claim that the ox is the lineal 

 descendant of a codfish, even though the internal secretions 

 of the pituitary bodies appear to be very much alike. Con- 

 tinuity looms more largely in nature's plan than variation 

 appears to do. 



Blood relationship and liability to the same diseases is a 

 new " proof " which has been exploited a good deal of recent 

 years. Nuttall's results, on which our knowledge is based, 

 showed that the lemurs and American monkeys are far away 

 from the apes and man ; the Old World monkeys come next, 

 and the simiidce are nearest related to man, but the orang, 

 chimpanzee, and gorilla appear to be equally human in this 

 aspect.^ This work was carried out at a time when modern 

 laboratory methods were in their infancy. If the application 

 of recent refinements in technique should confirm the position 

 ^ Blood Immunity and Relationship, 1904, pp. 2, 222. 



