MAN AND APES. 177 



certain cerebral characters, then that remote 

 ancestor must also have had the wrist of the 

 Chimpanzee, the voice of a long-armed ape, 

 the blade-bone of the Gorilla, the chin of the 

 Siamang, the skull-dome of an American ape, 

 the ischium of a slender Loris, the whiskers 

 and beard of a Saki, the liver and stomach 



of the Gibbons, and the number of other 

 characters before detailed, in which the 

 various several forms of higher or lower 

 Primates respectively approximate to man. 



But to assert this is as much as to say that 

 low down in the scale of Primates was an 

 ancestral form so like man that it might well 

 be called an homunculus ; and we have the 

 virtual pre-existence of man's body supposed, 

 in order to account for the actual first 

 appearance of that body as we know it — a 

 supposition manifestly absurd if put forward 

 as an explanation. 



Nor if such an homunculus had really 

 existed, would it suffice to account for the 

 difficulty. For it must be borne in mind that 



