154 EVOLUTION AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 



The argument that naturally appealed most to 

 the popular imagination was that founded on the 

 theory of the missing link. Many forms of the 

 "ape-man" were forthwith discovered, but after 

 carefully studying them all, the great paleontolo- 

 gist Branco, the special authority in this very 

 field, announced at the Berlin International Con- 

 gress of Zoologists, in 1901, as the result of his 

 thorough investigation that: "Paleontology tells 

 us nothing on the subject. It knows no ancestor 

 of man." * 



The first specimen logically to be considered 

 here, although not the first discovered, is the so- 

 called Pithecanthropus erectus, or "walking ape- 

 man." From an elaborate bust of him, fanci- 

 fully conceived and cleverly executed, the unin- 

 formed reader might well be led to believe that he 

 had been found like the mastodon embedded in 

 the ice, and so had come down to us, perfectly 

 preserved for our admiring vision, even to the 

 shaggy hair on breast and arm. With dignified 

 mien and huge flowing side beard, he is a being 

 patriarchal, almost venerable, in spite of slightly 

 protruding tusks and simian jaw. Looking for- 

 ward with uplifted head, placid eyes and serene 

 countenance, he seems to be gazing into the future 

 of his race. 



Turning now from theory to fact, from imagi- 

 nation to reality, what is it that science itself has 



1 See Wasmann "Modern Biology," p. 478. 



