iS4 THE HUMAN SKULL 



skulls, closely resembling in all salient features 

 the skulls of men and women living at this day, 

 and in no sort of sense intermediate between men 

 and apes. 



Huxley, in 1863, admitted that " the fossil 

 remains of man hitherto discovered do not seem 

 to me to take us appreciably nearer to that lower 

 pithecoid form, by the modification of which he 

 has, probably, become what he is." 



Twenty-six years later, in 1889, Virchow,* one 

 of the greatest anthropologists and men of science 

 of the last century, was summing up with the 

 evidence of all the skulls mentioned in this paper, 

 except that of Trinil, before him the question 

 of the origin of man's body. What was his verdict ? 

 Speaking at the twentieth general meeting of the 

 German Anthropological Association, at Vienna, 

 he alluded to the first meeting which the society 

 has held. At that time, he says, " no one doubted 

 that the proof would be forthcoming, demon- 

 strating that man descended from a monkey, and 

 that this descent from a monkey, or at least from 

 some kind of animal, would soon be established. 

 This was a challenge which was made and success- 

 fully defended in the first battle. Everybody knew 

 all about it and was interested in it. Some spoke 

 for it ; some against it. It was considered the great- 

 est question of anthropology. Let me remind you, 



* It is now the fashion of some writers to state that Virchow's 

 "vast knowledge and range of thought have been somewhat 

 neutralised by his excessive conservatism." But this is only a 

 roundabout way of saying that Virchow's views do not agree 

 with those of the writers in question, and that Virchow's opinion 

 in consequence is not worthy of being taken into consideration. 



