390 ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF PARIS. 



of methodical percussions designed to open tLe medullary canal and peniiit tlie 

 extraction of the marrow. 



Thus we have arrived at the most ancient known epoch in the life of mankind. 

 "What were at that time the physical characters of man"? The l)ones of the mem- 

 bers Avhich have been found prove that the stature was of little height ; and 

 though the skulls or remains of skulls are still quite rare, it may be considered 

 as very nearly demonstrated that our predecessors of the quaternary had the 

 head small, with retreating forehead, and oblique jaws. But a graver and more 

 critical question here presents itself. Our young, but already distinguished col- 

 league, M. Dupont, in tlie excavations which hehas conducted during several years 

 fi)r the Belgic government on the banks of the Meuse, between Liege and Naraur, 

 discovered, several mouths ago, among the bones of the rhinoceros and mam- 

 moth which occupy the lower stratum of the cavern of Naulette, a strange jaw, the 

 zoological characters of which might at first seem to be equivocal. From its general 

 form this skull appeared human, and was so in effect; but in the details of its con- 

 formation, its excessive thickness, the total absence of the prominence of the chin, 

 finall}' and cliietly, in the character of the dentition, which is a character of the first 

 order, it deviated considerably from the human type, while approximating to that 

 of the anthropoinori)hous apes. Analogous traits, though less decided, had been 

 already recognized in the jaw extracted by the Marquis de Vibraye from the 

 cavern of Arcy-sur-Aube, the authenticity of which is not now to be questioned. 

 In order to find in our actual humanity some of these characters, and even tlien 

 mucli mitigated, it is necessary to descend to the lowest types of Australia and New 

 Caledonia. The latter, it would follow, form not, as had till now been supposed, 

 the last, or if you like, the first terra of the human series. The quaternary man 

 takes his place below them, and thus diminishes the interval which separates 

 man from his zoological neighbors. But what is the signification, tlie import, of 

 this fact? Must we recognize in this a proof of the transformation of species, or 

 only a proof of the serial distribution of organic forms, of wiiich the Darwinian 

 theory is but a hypothetic explanation? 



This doubt still subsists, notwithstanding the discussions to which so grave a 

 subject could not fail to give rise. If it were demonstrated that the type of the 

 man of Naulette, by successive and secular modifications, had been gradually 

 improved so as to be elevated to our own, it cannot be dissembled that this would 

 aftbrd for the Darwinists a very potent argument. But do we know in what 

 manner the quaternary races have made place for those of following ages ? What 

 is there to prove that the succession of types has not been the consequence 

 of a substitution of races? Do we not now see, at many points of America and 

 Oceanica, this substitution going on ; the races of Europe taking the place of the 

 indigenous races ? Let us avow, then, that as yet the facts we possess are too 

 few to solve this vast pi'oblem of the origin of the human kind, and let us wait 

 till new discoveries bring us more numerous and decisive indications. The truth, 

 Vvhatever it may be, need not disquiet or humiliate us. Whether man has 

 received his royalty as a congenital appanage, or valiantly conquered it after a 

 long series of evolutions and struggles, does he not always remain master of the 

 eai'th? He who knows how to manage as a docile instrument the blind forces 

 of nature, who makes of electricity his messenger, who weighs the planets, and 

 analyzes by photochemistry even the substance of the sun — will it be for him to 

 blush at any revelation respecting an origin buried in the immeasurable depths 

 of the past? No ; the discussion in this Society, so complete, so conscientious, 

 so learned on the doctrine of the human kingdom, sustained with so much ability 

 by MM. Pruner-bey and de Quarterfages, sufiiced to show that man, to maintain 

 his rank in nature, has no need of undervaluing or degrading the l)eings which 

 surround him. All the speakers, without exception, recognized the intelligence 

 of animals, and discerned in them the germ of intellectual faculties, of senti- 

 ments and passions, which have acquired their full development, their full expan- 



