692 THE LAST STEPS IN THE GENEALOGY OF MAN. 



which I have often desiguated by the name of middle vertebrates. There 

 the current has carried us along not in the direction of the mammals, 

 which however already appeared in the triassic epoch, but plainly to 

 the kingdom of the reptiles where we have to deal with the dinosaurian 

 origin of the monotremes or of some analogous group. We have foiiiid 

 tbe placental marsupials (designated by us under the name of con- 

 firmed proto-mammals), and we have shown whence with certain prox- 

 imate reservations (the whales for instance), all the present placental 

 mammals have issued, and consequently our race. But here the prob- 

 lem is complicated. Until that point, our origin appeared clear — save at 

 the very origin of mammals. The lemurs are already a cause of embar- 

 rassment. On the immediate descent of man, the uncertainties in- 

 crease. Many opinions each expressed by illustrious authorities are 

 before us; sometimes making objection, sometimes making confirmatory 

 arguments. 



There are only two doctrines to consider ; one that makes man come 

 from the primary trunk of the mammals in a direct line and without 

 intermediate orders, not from a mathematical point, but from that 

 confused mass succeeding the marsupials in which the difterentiations 

 are undecided and tend toward the ungulates, or toward man ; the 

 other which accepts the branch or order of the primates with all its 

 consequences, the lemurs or pro-simians at the base, the monkeys or 

 simians following, and man all alone at the summit. 



After a careful balancing of the two, I confess that I incline toward 

 the latter solution, and conclude for our descent from the monkey. In 

 my mind one consideration out-ranks all others. The type of cerebral 

 convolutions among all primates where it is well characterized in its 

 ascending evolution, is that of man ; it varies from the cebian, to 

 the pithecus, from the latter to the anthropoid, and from it to man, 

 only in degree.* The extreme development of the simian type of con- 

 volutions and the abrupt increase of the volume of the brain in going 

 from the anthropoid to man on which I have laid so much stress are 

 the two fundamental anatomical characters of man, histological exam- 

 ination being left out of consideration.t 



If on the one hand we find as details that the foot of monkeys has 

 a thumb more or less opposable ; that the latter should be more or less 

 adapted to their arboreal life ; that it might seem strange to us that 



* See P. Broca, "Anatomie compar^e des circonvolutions c6r€bra]e8." Bevue D'An- 

 ihropologie, 1878, page 385. 



t Accordiug to M. Chudzinski, so competent on this subject, not only the type of 

 the convolutions but to ati equal degree the muscular and visceral anomalies show- 

 ing themselves in man plead in favor of simian descent. Certain muscular anomalies 

 give likewise a reversion towards the state of climbers or tree dwellers (see Chud- 

 zinski's memoir in the H^vue d\4nthropolof/ie, " On the muscular and visceral varia- 

 tions among the races" and in the bulletins of the Societe' d'Anthropologie, "An 

 anomaly observed in the Orang)." See also his great work crowned by the Institute, 

 "On the comparative anatomy of the convolutions," that appeared in 1878 and of 

 ^'tjiclx tljo fierue c^' 4nthrofiQloQie has given a review ia the volnnjo of 1879, page 707, 



