92 COMPAEISON OF THE HUMAN AND SIMIAN BRAINS. CHAP. v. 



proportions the Neanderthal skeleton does not differ from 

 the ordinary standard, so that the skeleton by no means 

 indicates a transition between Homo and Pithecus. 



There is doubtless, as shown in the diagram fig. 4, a 

 nearer resemblance in the outline of the Neanderthal skull 

 to that of a chimpanzee than had ever been observed before 

 in any human cranium ; and Professor Huxley's description 

 of the occipital region shows that the resemblance is not 

 confined to the mere excessive prominence of the superciliary 

 ridges. 



The direct bearing of the ape-like character of the Nean 

 derthal skull on Lamarck's doctrine of progressive develop 

 ment and transmutation, or on that modification of it which 

 has of late been so ably advocated by Mr. Darwin, consists 

 in this, that the newly observed deviation from a normal 

 standard of human structure is not in a casual or random 

 direction, but just what might have been anticipated if the 

 laws of variation were such as the transmutationists require. 

 For if we conceive the cranium to be very ancient, it exem 

 plifies a less advanced stage of progressive development 

 and improvement. If it be a comparatively modern race, 

 owing its peculiarities of conformation to degeneracy, it is 

 an illustration of what the botanists have called ' atavism,' 

 or the tendency of varieties to revert to an ancestral type, 

 which type, in proportion to its antiquity, would be of lower 

 grade. To this hypothesis, of a genealogical connection 

 between man and the lower animals, I shall again allude 

 in the concluding chapters. 



