MAN IN NATURE. 451 



furnished us none. The most ancient man known to us by his 

 bones is that one of Spy, which dates from the epoch of the mam- 

 moth. Yet it is demonstrated by flint implements that man pri- 

 marily existed in both hemispheres. We see him, as the great Qua- 

 ternary glaciers of Europe and America retired, going up toward 

 the north. Europe was then only a narrow promontory which man 

 traveled along in coming from Asia. That is all we know about 

 our primitive ancestors. Beyond that we have no sure trace, no 

 flints. The flints of Thenay are of the Roman epoch. To hazard 

 a few conjectures respecting the Miocene ancestor, whether it 

 was man or a precursor — one or the other certain, although 

 direct proofs are wanting — we should be obliged to recur to the 

 general probabilities furnished by natural history. 



As we have seen, natural history proves indisputably that man 

 is the issue of a Primate. It is opposed to the idea that we are 

 descended from an anthropoid like those of the present time, 

 although one of them — the chimpanzee — offers, perhaps, fewer 

 objections to the supposition than the others. It furnishes argu- 

 ments very favorable to the supposition that our stock comes 

 from a Miocene monkey. It is not contrary to the theory of a di- 

 rect descent from the lemurians, which were in their turn issue of 

 the marsupials. But nowhere does it permit us to discern whether 

 man came from one or two stocks, or originated at one epoch, or 

 two epochs remote from one another. 



The question whether the monkeys are of single or multiple 

 origin is likewise not answered. According to MM. Vogt and 

 Schmidt, the monkeys of the New World had not the same deriva- 

 tion as those of the Old World. This doctrine would support the 

 theory of man having two origins, one common to Asia and 

 America for the white and yellow races, the other on some south- 

 ern continent joining Africa and Oceania for the negro. 



Whether the moment of this origin be single or double, two 

 periods are to be considered : one previous to the acquisition of 

 language, in which the precursor of man is concerned ; and the 

 other after this, during which the real man was constituted. 

 With the acquisition of speech a new life begins. Man, more able 

 to associate with his fellows and to come to an understanding 

 with them, would spread, become cosmopolitan, face every kind 

 of climate, meet various necessities of existence, and thereby dif- 

 ferentiate himself. This differentiation was all the easier, because 

 his species was of more recent formation and less fixed, and be- 

 cause the media acted with certainty under those conditions. 

 From that time the brain increased, the skull was transformed, 

 prognathism diminished, and the facial angle opened. 



But a new factor intervened at the same time. Till then the 

 struggle for existence had been carried on by physical force; now 



