12 THE NEANDERTHAL SKULL. 



"But man, proud man, 

 Drest in a little brief authority, 

 Most ignorant of what he's most assured, 

 His glassy essence, like an angry ape, 

 Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven 

 As make the angels weep : who, with our spleens, 

 Would all themselves laugh mortal." * 



Shakespeare's theory of the proud 

 Englishman's resemblance to "an angry 

 ape" has been supplemented by Voltaire's 

 definition of a Frenchman being composed 

 of " half tiger and half monkey," and 

 confirmed by the great German historian 

 Niebuhr, who when speaking of the Italians 

 says their " life is little more than that of 

 an ape endowed with speech." 



The next in chronological order would 

 be the "divine" Plato, as he has been 

 termed by his ardent admirers, and I only 

 give the precedence to Aristotle, who was 

 born 40 years later than Plato, because 

 his testimony is so brief, but pointed. In 

 his work entitled De G-ente Animalium, he 

 gives this alternative view of man's origin. 

 "Supposing," he says, "both man and 



* Measure for Measure, act ii., scene 2, 1. 120. 



