SEMI- APES AND. APES. 299 



in Man, any more than we do in the case of the 

 Anthropomorphoids and all the other Apes of the 

 Old World, but we shall not hesitate to maintain 

 that the ancestors of Man possessed a fuller number 

 of teeth, as long as deductions are justified from the 

 observation of facts. Our teeth have decreased in 

 number during the course of our geologico-zoolo- 

 gical development ; we have lost on either side, 

 above and below, two incisors, two premolars, and 

 one molar. By this we transfer ourselves back to 

 those periods from which the jaw of the Otocyon 

 has been preserved (see p. 267). Baume, our 

 eminent odontologist, in a recent work which we 

 have repeatedly referred to, has successfully fol- 

 lowed and pointed out cases of atavism or reversion 

 in the human jaw, by tracing cases of * surplus ' 

 teeth and certain dental formations met with in 

 the jaws in a large percentage of cases back to 

 those portions of the jaw in the animal ancestors 

 of Man which have disappeared in the course 

 of ages. 



If, in former times, more teeth were met with in 

 the group which was perfecting itself into Man, we 

 must be permitted to ask nay, we are compelled in 

 a purely scientific spirit to ask whether things 

 have come to a standstill in this part of our 



