534 Mr. P. Chalmers Mitchell [May 6, 



skeleton and the brain as an illustration rather than as an exposition 

 of this anatomical fact. 



[The lecturer then showed and explained a series of lantern 

 slides of the skeletons and of the brains of anthropoid apes and man, 

 and called special attention to a set of actual brains of anthropoid 

 apes which had been very beautifully preserved for him by Mr. 

 F. E. Beddard, F.R.S., the Prosector of the Zoological Society. He 

 compared these with specimens of actual brains and models of brains 

 of human embryos which had been lent to him by Dr. Keith, of the 

 London Hospital Medical College.] 



Since Huxley and Darwin wrote, corroborative evidence of new 

 and unexpected kinds has been obtained resjDecting the relationship 

 between man and anthropoids. This evidence may be divided into 

 three heads : — 



1. Palseontological. — In 1894 Dr. Eugene Dubois discovered in 

 Java the very remarkable fossil now known as Pithecanthropus 

 erectus. From the character of the bed in which the bones of this 

 creature were found, and from the mammalian remains with which it 

 was associated. Pithecanthropus must be referred to the Upper 

 Pliocene series. Very animated debate has taken place amongst 

 anatomists as to whether Pithecanthropus is to be considered human 

 or anthropoid. That question, however, is one of classification ; the 

 salient point is that Pithecanthropus is more ape-like than any known 

 human type living or extinct, and more man-like than any known 

 form of ape living or extinct. 



'2. Anatomical Study of Variation. — The most striking feature of 

 anatomical work of the last two decades is the importance that has 

 been attached to the study of variation. Until comparatively recently, 

 anatomists were content to take the characters of an animal from one, 

 or at least from a very small number of specimens. A worker who 

 had the good fortune to dissect a specimen of a gibbon, an orang, a 

 gorilla, a chimpanzee, and a human body, would have considered 

 himself provided with abundant material for a discrimination of the 

 characters of these forms. We know now, however, that the 

 anatomical structure of a species must be estimated in percentages, 

 in the number of times that any particular arrangement, say of blood- 

 vessels occurs, in say 100 specimens. In the case of closely allied 

 forms, variations of anatomical structure that occur in a high per- 

 centage in one species are found in a lower percentage in another 

 species. Anatomically speaking, allied species are simply different 

 centres of oscillation in a continuous series of anatomical variations. 

 And thus it has been found that anatomical peculiarities regarded as 

 abnormal (that is to say, occurring in a small number of individuals per 

 cent.) in man are normal (that is to say, occurring in a large number 

 of individuals per cent.) in the gibbon, or orang, or chimpanzee, or 

 gorilla. Similarly the gorilla normal, or the gibbon normal, occurs 

 iu man as an abnormality. 



3. Physiological. — A remarkable recent development of physio- 



