THE PROBLEM OF MAN'S ORIGIN 5 



inevitable, and it can only result, in the end, in a gain 

 to the scientific knowledge of the origin of Man. Mean- 

 while it is advisable to take stock of what is probable 

 concerning the phylogenetic story of Man, in order to see 

 if there is any stage in his evolution at which he, or his 

 remains, might be labelled as human. Not so long ago 

 there would have been no hesitation in asserting what 

 type was, and what was not, human. Man began as Man, 

 and that was the beginning and the end of it. We have 

 definitely passed that stage. To-day we have a bewilder- 

 ing complexity of genera and species of missing links; 

 but we still have a more or less definite conception of 

 what we would term a human being. It has been claimed 

 that the possession of the ability to speak constitutes an 

 essential feature of the dawning human being, and it has 

 even been imagined that, from a study of the fragmentary 

 physical remains of missing links, the presence or absence 

 of this faculty could be determined. Physical remains 

 cannot provide the material from which certain know- 

 ledge upon this point may be gleaned. There is no more 

 reason for saying that some such missing link could not 

 speak because some divergence from the modern human 

 type is found in the construction of the jaw, than there 

 is for asserting that a monkey cannot play the piano 

 because the anatomy of his hand differs in some details 

 from that of a human pianist. No ape has become an 

 orator, and no monkey a distinguished performer upon 

 the piano ; but we must not seek the reason for this in 

 the departures from the standard human form seen in the 

 structure of their jaws and hands. Speech, and piano- 

 playing, are the outcomes of a series of elaborations of 

 cerebral processes which are present in existing Man, but 

 not in existing monkeys. We have no certain physical 

 clue in the fragmentary remains of missing links con- 

 cerning the presence or absence of these elaborations of 

 cerebral processes. 



There is a very prevalent idea that the assumption of 



