"MISSING LINKS" MILLER 421 



The three points of view should now be easy to understand. 



First. Missing links can not be expected to exist. 



Second. Missing links have been found ; beliefs that they have not 

 arise from ignorance. 



Third. Missing links have not been found; beliefs that they have 

 arise from preconceptions. 



IS ANY AGREEMENT POSSIBLE? 



To the question whether or not reconciliation is possible among 

 men whose opinions differ so radically the only answer seems to be 

 that nothing can bring agreement short of the discovery of evidence 

 so convincing as to compel its general acceptance by the scientific 

 world. 



What would be the nature of such evidence? As we can not 

 hope to find anything more than the skeleton of a missing link, 

 the evidence would be furnished by the structure of the bones and 

 teeth. To weigh such evidence it is necessary to know something of 

 the essential features which distinguish the skeleton of man from 

 that of monkeys and apes. These features are all related to the 

 two chief physical peculiarities of man — namely, the upright posi- 

 tion of the body and the large size and unusually great weight of the 

 brain. The upright position has set its stamp most conspicuously 

 on three parts of the skeleton — the foot, the pelvis, and the base of 

 the skull ; the large brain has set its stamp on the size and shape of 

 the upper and posterior part of the skull. Man's foot is character- 

 ized by its ability to act as the habitual support for the entire weight 

 of the body and its inability to grasp in the manner of a hand, 

 features which are particularly indicated by the bones of the heeji 

 and of the great toe. His pelvis differs from that of the apes in 

 its bowl-like form suited to holding the superimposed viscera. The 

 base of his skull is so constructed that the points of support are 

 approximately beneath the center of gravity, and the whole mass 

 of the head can thus be balanced on the top of the upright vertebral 

 column, something which can not happen in any monkey or ape. 

 Finajly, man's brain case is greatly swollen in proportion to the 

 .size of his face and jaws. Less fundamental peculiarities may be 

 found in the curved form of the human lower jaw, in the shape 

 and size of the teeth, in the structure of the bones in the leg, and 

 in the general lengthening of the leg and shortening of the arm. 

 Apes and monkeys, in contrast to man, habitually walk on all fours 

 when on the ground; their feet are so constructed that they are as 

 good grasping organs as their hands; the weight of the viscera, 

 when the animals are wa^lking, is mostly slung beneath the hori- 

 zontal backbone and not mostly piled upon the pelvis; the supports 



24034—29 28 



