INTRODUCTION AND GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 17 



Apes were again subdivided as follows : 



(a) The American (New World) Platyrrhines, with broad 

 nasal septum and short bony auditory passage. 



(b) The Old World Catarrhines^ with narrow nasal septum. 

 The catarrhines, especially the higher varieties, the anthro- 

 poids, are in their physical structure most closely related to 

 man. 



Robert Hartmann divides the whole order of Primates into 

 three families : 



(a) Primarii : Man and the anthropoid apes. 



(b) Simiae : Apes, both Platyrrhines (broad-nosed) and 

 Catarrhines (narrow-nosed). 



(c) Prosimiae : semi-apes (Lemuridae). 



Huxley also places man together with the anthropoid apes 

 in a separate class, stating his reasons for so doing as follows : 

 " The anatomical differences separating man from the gorilla 

 and chimpanzee are not so great as those distinguishing these 

 latter from the lower apes". This opinion has become a 

 general axiom of modern natural science and is approved by 

 Haeckel. In his lecture on the " Origin of Man " he says : 

 " Comparative anatomy applied to the Catarrhine group, proves 

 conclusively that the morphological differences existing between 

 man and the anthropoid apes are not so great as those between 

 the anthropoids and the lowest members of the same group ". 



Man's place in this order is most clearly defined by 

 Haeckel's classification : 



(1) All the Primates, including man, descend from a common 

 prototype. 



(2) The progenitors of man formed a group of Catarrhines, 

 now extinct. The very earliest ancestors of this group belonged 

 to the lower caudate apes, possessing three or four sacral 

 vertebrae. The later ancestors of the group belonged to the 

 tailless apes with five sacral vertebrae. 



(3) The Catarrhines form a natural group which may be 

 traced back, directly or indirectly, to a branch of the Prosimiae. 



(4) The true apes (Simiae) have been developed from the 

 half-apes (Prosimiae). 



But this classification of man in the order of the Primates 

 did not satisfy the supporters of the doctrine of evolution, 



2 



