210 PRESENT-DAY RATIONALISM 



both simian and human characteristics, de/ore they be- 

 came differentiated along separate lines. The letter Y 

 will represent it. The stem is the so-called " generalised 

 type," which gave rise to two, or very likely more than 

 two branches, one of them ending in man, the other in 

 forms of the existing monkey tribes. 



If it be asked when this took place, the answer can 

 only be based on analogies. Thus, in Greece, for ex- 

 ample, a large number of fossil remains of mammalia 

 have been unearthed. 



They belong to the later Miocene or early Pliocene 

 period, according to geologists. Not one single species 

 there found is now living. Moreover, several of them are 

 " generalised types," embracing features of what are now 

 distinct genera of animals, which appeared in the next 

 period or later Pliocene. Thus, the Ictitherimn com- 

 bined characters of the hya;na and civet. Hyaenarctos 

 unites — as the name implies — the hyaena and bear. 

 Kuonarctos combines the dog with the bear, and so on. 



Now, in the next or Pliocene period, we find the 

 animals becoming differentiated ; and the existing genera 

 appearing. Thus, Equus the horse, occurs here for the 

 first time; whereas his three-toed ancestor, HipparioHy 

 was among the remains of the preceding period. 



Hence, judging by analogy, as the horse, hyaena, bear, 

 etc., are existing now, so man may have appeared well 

 differentiated from the Simiada, for the first time, in the 

 later Pliocene epoch. 



Geologically speaking, this period immediately pre- 

 ceded the Glacial epoch, in the northern hemisphere ; 

 and from other evidence there is every reason to suppose 

 man to have been preglacial. 



Something akin to a missing link is thought by 

 some scientists to have been found in Java, and has 



