36 THE RIDDLE OF THE UNIVERSE. 



universal and conspicuous, and that they harmonise 

 with their geographical distribution in the two hemi- 

 spheres, fully authorises a sharp systematic division 

 of the two, as well as the phylogenetic conclusion 

 that for a very long period (for more than a million 

 years) the two sub-orders have been developing quite 

 independently of each other in the western and 

 eastern hemispheres. That is a most important point 

 in view of the genealogy of our race ; for man bears 

 all the marks of a true catarrhina ; he has descended 

 from some extinct member of this sub-order in the 

 Old World. 



The numerous types of catarrhina which still 

 survive in Asia and Africa have been formed into two 

 sections for some time — the tailed, dog-like apes (the 

 cynopitheci) and the tailless man-like apes (the antliro- 

 pomorpha). The latter are much nearer to man than 

 the former, not only in the absence of a tail and in 

 the general build of the body (especially of the head), 

 but also on account of certain features which are 

 unimportant in themselves, but very significant in 

 their constancy. The sacrum of the anthropoid ape, 

 like that of man, is made up of the fusion of five 

 vertebrae ; that of the cynopithecus consists of three 

 (more rarely four) sacral vertebrae. The premolar 

 teeth of the cynopitheci are greater in length than 

 breadth ; those of the anthropomorpha are broader 

 than they are long ; and the first molar has four pro- 

 tuberances in the former, five in the latter. Further- 

 more, the outer incisor of the lower jaw is broader 

 than the inner one in the man-like apes and man ; in 

 the dog-like ape it is the smaller. Finally, there is a 

 special significance in the fact, established by Selenka 

 in 1890, that the anthropoid apes share with man the 



