EVOLUTION OF MAX SMITH. 569 



very much tlie same kind of life (as gorillas and chimpanzees) as 

 their ancestors had been living since the Miocene or even earlier 

 times. That both of these unenterprising relatives of man happen 

 to live in the forests of tropical Africa has always seemed to me to 

 be a strong argument in favor of Darwin's view that Africa was the 

 original home of the first creatures definitely committed to the 

 human career; for while man was evolved amidst the strife with 

 adveree conditions, the ancestors of the gorilla and chimpanzee gave 

 up the struggle for mental supremacy simply because they were 

 satisfied with their circumstances ; and it is more likely than not that 

 they did not change their habitat. 



The erect attitude, infinitel}^ more ancient than man liimself, is 

 not the real cause of man's emergence from the simian stage; but it 

 is one of the factors made use of by the expanding brain as a prop 

 still further to extend its gi'owdng dominion, and by fixing and estab- 

 lishing in a more decided way this erectness it liberated the hand to 

 become the cliief instrument of man's further progress. 



In learning to execute movements of a degree of delicacy and 

 precision to which no ape could ever attain, and the primitive ape- 

 man could onl}^ attempt once his arm was completely emancipated 

 from the necessity of being an instrument of progression, that cor- 

 tical area which seemed to serve for the phenomena of attention 

 became enhanced in importance. Hence the prefrontal region, where 

 the acti\aties of the cortex as a whole are, as it were, focused and 

 regulated, began to grow until eventually it became the most dis- 

 tinctive characteristic of the human brain, gradually filling out the 

 front of the cranium and producing the distinctively human forehead. 

 In the diminutive prefrontal area of Pithecanthropus,^ and to a less 

 marked degree. Neanderthal man,^ we see illustrations of lower 

 human types, bearing the impress of their lowly state in receding 

 foreheads and great brow ridges. However large the brain may be 

 in Homo primigenius, his small prefrontal region, if we accept Boule 

 and Anthony's statements, is sufficient evidence of his lowly state of 

 intelligence and reason for his failure in the competition with the 

 rest of mankind. 



The gi'owth in intelligence and in the powere of discrimination no 

 doubt led to a definite cultivation of the aesthetic sense, wliich, 

 operating through sexual selection, brought about a gradual refine- 

 ment of the features, added grace to the general build of the body, 

 and demolished the greater part of its hairy covering. It also led to 

 an intensification of the sexual distinctions, especially by developing 



' Eug. Dubois, "Uemarks upon the Brain-east of Pithecanthropus," Proc. Fourlti Inteniat. Cong. 

 Zool., August, 1S98, published Cambridge, 1S99, p. 81. 



-Boule and Antliony, " L'ene6phale de I'homme fossile de la Chapelle-aiix-Saints,'' L'Authropologie, 

 tome 22, No. 2, 1911, p. 50. 



