168 The Outline of Science 



much truth in the saying: "Man did not make society, society 

 made man." 



A continuation of the story will deal with the emergence of 

 the primitive types of man and the gradual ascent of the modern 

 species. 



| 4 



Tentative Men 



So far the story has been that of the sifting out of a human- 

 oid stock and of the transition to human kind, from the ancestors 

 of apes and men to the man-ape, and from the man-ape to man. 

 It looks as if the sifting-out process had proceeded further, for 

 there were several human branches that did not lead on to the 

 modern type of man. 



1. The first of these is represented by the scanty fossil re- 

 mains known as Pithecanthropus erectus, found in Java in fossili- 

 ferous beds which date from the end of the Pliocene or the 

 beginning of the Pleistocene era. Perhaps this means half a 

 million years ago, and the remains occurred along with those of 

 some mammals which are now extinct. Unfortunately the remains 

 of Pithecanthropus the Erect consisted only of a skull-cap, a 

 thigh-bone, and two back teeth, so it is not surprising that experts 

 should differ considerably in their interpretation of what was 

 found. Some have regarded the remains as those of a large gib- 

 bon, others as those of a pre-human ape-man, and others as those 

 of a primitive man off the main line of ascent. According to Sir 

 Arthur Keith, Pithecanthropus was "a being human in stature, 

 human in gait, human in all its parts, save its brain." The thigh- 

 bone indicates a height of about 5 feet 7 inches, one inch less than 

 the average height of the men of to-day. The skull-cap indicates a 

 low, flat forehead, beetling brows, and a capacity about two-thirds 

 of the modern size. The remains were found by Dubois, in 1894, 

 in Trinil in Central Java. 



2. The next offshoot is represented by the Heidelberg man 



