THE EVOLUTION OF MAN 



boons, have a much closer resemblance to man 

 in this one point. 



There seems to be only one way out of these 

 strange contradictions. We must conclude that 

 the living anthropoid apes are closely related to 

 the archetype of man for which we are looking, 

 but they do not represent its thorough-bred type. 

 f Each one of them has developed along his own 

 I line from this thorough-bred type simultaneously 

 ^with man as we know him to-day. They did not 

 change very much, but still they went far enough 

 to acquire each his own peculiarities. All of 

 them retain strong resemblances to the archetype, 

 but one has preserved more of some characteris- 

 tics and lost others, while the reverse is true of 

 another species. Very likely the gibbon still re- 

 sembles that archetype most closely, but even he 

 has later acquired those enormous arms. 



It is highly interesting to know that we may 

 mention a direct reason for our general assump- 

 tion of probability, so that it becomes almost a 

 certainty. Among living beings there is a very 

 curious law, or at least a near approach to one. 

 Young animals very frequently resemble the 

 ancestors of their whole race more nearly than 

 the adult animals. A frog in the tadpole stage 

 still resembles a fish which breathes in the water 



48 



