422 OUTLINES OF EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY 



It may even be questioned whether any large proportion of 

 specific characters can have arisen through the action of natural 

 selection. The characters by which we are accustomed to sepa- 

 rate one species from another such as minute differences in 

 size, shape and colour are usually so slight that we are hardly 

 justified in attributing to them any adaptive value. They may, 

 however, form the starting points from which, under the influ- 

 ence of natural selection and use and disuse, adaptive characters 

 may subsequently arise. 



The application of the principles of organic evolution to the 

 problem of the origin and progress of the human race cannot be 

 adequately dealt witli in the present volume, while at the same 

 time we cannot altogether ignore it, for not only is it in man 

 himself that we find the most remarkable illustration of what 

 has been accomplished by evolution, but the future progress of 

 mankind must depend in large measure upon the correct 

 understanding of the principles in question. 



Buffon, more than a century ago, pointed out the close resem- 

 blance in anatomical structure between man and the higher 

 apes, and it is clear that both he and Lamarck were only pre- 

 vented by religious scruples from definitely maintaining the 

 origin of the human species from ape-like ancestors, a view 

 which at the present time is universally accepted amongst 

 scientific men. This reluctance to admit the obviously close 

 relationship of the human species with the apes was one of the 

 evil results of the intellectual dishonesty and obscurantism of 

 the middle ages. If we go back to the days of Carthage, we 

 find that the explorer Han no did not hesitate to speak of the 

 "gorillas " l which he met with in Africa as hairy men and 

 women of the woods, and although this was doubtless going too 

 far in the opposite direction, it shows not only that he recognized 

 the relationship but also that he approached the question with a 

 mind entirely free from prejudice. 



Man is one of the latest products of organic evolution, and his 

 appearance upon the scene possibly does not date further back than 

 Pliocene times. It is said that flint flakes of human workman- 

 ship have been discovered in early Pliocene deposits of Burmah, 



1 Probably really chimpanzees. 



