DOES LIKENESS PROVE DESCENT? 173 



vanced and is defended today. Thus we were in- 

 formed in a cable to the New York Times from 

 London, February 28, 1918, that according to the 

 professor of anatomy in the University of Lon- 

 don, "The missing link of Huxley, if ever found, 

 would not be a more ape-like man but a more 

 human ape." This news item, which was not in 

 the least new to those acquainted with the history 

 of evolutionary theories, was thus introduced by 

 the press : 



That man is not descended from anthropoid apes, that these 

 would be in fact more accurately described as having been 

 descended from man, that man as man is far more ancient than 

 the whole anthropoid branch, and that compared with him the 

 chimpanzee and orang-outang are new-comers on this planet, 

 were assertions made by Professor Wood Jones, professor of 

 anatomy in the University of London, in a lecture yesterday on 

 the origin of man. The professor claimed these assertions were 

 proved not only by recent anatomical research, but were de- 

 ducible from the whole trend of geological and anthropological 

 discovery. 



This was not a new theory but had been pro- 

 pounded by von Buttel-Riepen 6 following upon 

 Klaatsch. There is exactly as much evidence to 

 prove that the ape is descended from man as to 

 prove that man is descended from the ape, and 

 this evidence, we have seen, is zero. As the con- 

 flict of opinions shows, science has stressed for us 

 that there are certain similarities of structure be- 

 tween man and the higher vertebrates, a fact 



6 "Man and His Forerunners '' 



