176 WHAT IS LIFE? 



shown in the creation of Man the last, the most com- 

 plex and the highest organism. Man has sprung from 

 the man-like animals the apes. He is structurally 

 formed in a like mould bone for bone, muscle for 

 muscle, nerve for nerve, each and all are homologous 

 in man and the higher apes. 1 And yet there is a gap. 2 



1 " An uninterrupted chain of transitions and similitudes connects 

 the whole animal world, from the lowest to the highest types. Even 

 man, who, in his presumption, deems himself so far superior to the 

 animal world, forms no exception to this law. The Ethiopian race 

 connects him by a number of the most striking similitudes with the 

 animal world. The long arm, the shape of the foot, the thin calves, 

 the long and narrow hands, the flattened nose, the projecting jaws, 

 the depressed receding forehead, the elongated head, the short neck, 

 the narrow pelvis, the pendulous belly, the beardless chin, the colour 

 of the skin, the disagreeable odour, the sharp and piercing voice, are 

 all the characteristic marks which approach tlie negro to tlie ape. 

 That his mind corresponds to his physique has been established by the 

 best observers.'' ("Force and Matter," Dr. Louis Biichner, 1864, 

 p. 75.) 



"In proof of the assertion that the hairy covering of Man is 

 directly inherited from the Anthropoid apes, we find, according to 

 Darwin, a curious evidence in the direction, otherwise inexplicable, in 

 which the rudimentary hairs lie on our arms. Both on the upper 

 and on the lower arm the hairs are directed towards the elbow, where 

 they meet at an obtuse angle. Except in Man, this striking arrange- 

 ment occurs only in the Anthropoid Apes, the Gorilla, Chimpanzee, 

 Orang, and several species of Gibbons." (" The Evolution of Man," 

 Prof. Ernst Haeckel, 1883, vol. ii. p. 208.) 



2 " Tt is evident, therefore, that these two branches of the Primates, 

 man and ape, follow diverging lines of development, and can never 

 be transformed into one another, and that the ' missing links ' to 

 connect the human species with the common law of evolution of the 

 animal kingdom, are to be sought in other directions than that of 

 direct descent from any existing form of ape or monkey. . . . Not 

 only have we found no fossil remains which stand to modern man in 

 something of the same relation as the Hipparion does to the horse, 

 but nothing has yet been discovered which seems to carry us so far 



