PRIMITIVE MAN. 375 



ance of man, the want of any link of connection be- 

 tween him and any preceding animal, and his dis- 

 similar bodily and mental constitution from any crea- 

 tures contemporary with him, render his derivation 

 from apes or other inferior animals in the highest 

 degree improbable, the locality of his probable origin 

 confirms this conclusion in the strongest manner. It 

 also shows that man and the higher apes are not 

 likely to have originated in the same regions, or 

 under the same conditions, and that the conditions 

 of human origin are rather the coincidence of suitable 

 climatal and organic surroundings than the occurrence 

 of animals closely related in structure to man. 



Changes of conditions in geological time will not 

 meet this difficulty. They might lead to migrations, 

 as they have done in the case of both plants and 

 animals, but not to anything further. The hyena, 

 whose bones are found in the English caves, has 

 been driven by geological changes to South Africa, 

 but he is still the same hyena. The reindeer which 

 once roamed in France is still the reindeer in Lap- 

 land ; and though under different geological con- 

 ditions we might imagine the creature to have origi- 

 nated in the south of Europe, a country not now 

 suitable to it, this would neither give reason to 

 believe that any animal now living in the south of 

 Europe was its progenitor, nor to doubt that it still 

 remains unchanged in its new habitat. Indeed, the 

 absence of anything more than merely varietal 

 change in man and his companion-animals, in con- 



