'CHAPTER XIII 



THE MISSING LINK 



THAT the question of the descent of man 

 from the brute belongs purely to the 

 realm of theory and not to jthat of estab- 

 lished fact cannot be seriously disputed. It is 

 evident from the simple circumstance that no uni- 

 formity of opinion has ever existed among the 

 very scientists who have most enthusiastically 

 promoted these views. 



There are in the first place those who defend 

 a direct relationship between man and the ape. 

 These have found their supporters largely among 

 zoologists, and their theories are in general blindly 

 reproduced in the literature of Socialism and in 

 popular works of sociology, in class manuals and 

 books of general information. Others claim to 

 find man's primitive ancestor in some lower order 

 of mammals. Thus the hypothetical Molchmaus 

 was invented to answer this purpose. The latter 

 view won greater favor among anthropologists, 

 but the former, because more speciously alluring, 

 was more readily adaptable for general propa- 

 ganda. 



153 



