VI 



THE ARYAN QUESTION 321 



in fact, any stick was good enough to beat the dog 

 withal. 



As some writings of mine on the subject led to 

 my occupation of a prominent position among the 

 belaboured dogs of that day, I have taken a mild 

 interest in watching the gradual rehabilitation of 

 my old friend of the Neanderthal among normal 

 men, which has been going on of late years. It 

 has come to be generally admitted that his re- 

 markable cranium is no more than a strongly- 

 marked example of a type which occurs, not only 

 among other prehistoric men, but is met with, 

 sporadically, among the moderns ; and that, after 

 all, I was not so wrong as I ought to have been, 

 when I indicated such points of similarity among 

 the skulls found in our river-beds and among the 

 native races of Australia. 1 However, doubts still 

 clung about the geological age of the various 

 deposits in which skulls of the Neanderthal type 

 were subsequently found ; and it was not until the 

 year 1886 that two highty-competent observers, 

 Messrs. Fraipont and Lohest, the one an anatomist, 

 the other a geologist, furnished us with evidence 

 such as will bear severe criticism. At the mouth 

 of a cave in the commune of Spy, in the Belgian 

 province of Namur, Messrs. Fraipont and Lohest 

 discovered two skeletons of the Neanderthal type ; 

 and the elaborate account of their investigations 

 which they have published appears to me to leave 



1 See p. 202 of this volume. 

 185 



