6 AKBOREAL MAN 



the upright posture in terrestrial progression gave to Man 

 those special attributes which we would term human. 

 There can be no possible doubt that the faculty for striding 

 about upright upon the surface of the earth marked a very 

 real phase in evolution. But when we come to examine the 

 possible influences which preceded this departure, we can 

 only regard it as a natural and culminating phase of a long 

 series of changes which had taken place in an altogether 

 different environment. Were the whole series of missing 

 links to be paraded before us in the form of their frag- 

 mentary remains which are yet to be discovered, he would 

 be a bold man who would point to any individual member 

 as the one in which the features of terrestrial uprightness 

 argued humanity. Arboreal uprightness preceded ter- 

 restrial uprightness ; and it is the purpose of these studies 

 to show, in some measure, the extent to which Man is 

 indebted to, and was perfected in, arboreal life. 



Man comes of an arboreal stock. Two questions arise. 

 When in the phylogeny of the Mammals did this stock 

 become arboreal, and when did it give rise to a creature 

 which we could possibly term human ? The first ques- 

 tion is capable of an approximate solution; the second 

 is unanswerable, but we may say with regard to it that, 

 if the term " humanoid " may be permitted, such a stock 

 may have had a very early representation among the 

 mammalian fauna. 



