THE NEANDERTHAL SKULL. 101 



to the complete discomfiture of his 

 opponents. 



Mr. Darwin, however, was so confident 

 of the truth of his theory respecting man 

 having been evolved from an ascidian 

 tadpole and an old-world monkey, that 

 he boasted that 



" The grounds upon which this con- 

 clusion rests will never be shaken, for the 

 close similarity between man and the 

 lower animals in embryonic development, &c., 

 the rudiments which he retains, and the 

 abnormal reversions to which he is 

 occasionally liable, are facts which cannot 

 be disputed. The great principle of 

 EVOLUTION stands up clear and firm, when 

 these groups of facts are considered in con- 

 nexion with others; all point to the con- 

 clusion that man is the co-descendant with 

 other mammals of a common ancestor .... 

 Man is developed from an ovule about the 

 125th of an inch in diameter, which 

 differs in no respect from the ovules of 

 other animals. The embryo itself at a 

 very early period, can hardly be dis- 



