HOMINIDJE. 793 



birth. The abnormalities may be either altogether soft or they may 

 contain bone, but in no case adequately known is there any increase in 

 the number of vertebrae which normally fuse to form the terminal 

 portion of the human vertebral column, known as the coccyx. 



The arguments by which Darwin and others have sought 

 to show that man arose from an ancestral type common to 

 him and to the higher apes, are the same as those used to 

 substantiate the general doctrine of descent. The Descent 

 of Man is the expansion of a chapter in the Origin 

 of Species. The arguments may be briefly summarised : 



(1) Physiological. The bodily life of man is like that of 

 monkeys; men and monkeys are subject to similar 

 diseases ; various human traits of gesture, expression, etc., 

 are paralleled among the "brutes"; " theromorphic " 

 monsters corroborate the alliance. 



(2) Morphological. The structure of man is like that of 

 the anthropoid apes ; none of his anatomical distinctions, 

 except that of a heavy brain, are momentous; there are 

 about eighty vestigial structures in his muscular, skeletal, 

 and other systems. 



(3) Historical. Certainties in regard to remains of 

 primitive man are few, but his individual development reads 

 like a recapitulation of ancestral history. 



To many, man seems too marvellous to have been natur- 

 ally evolved ; to others the evidence seems insufficient ; but 

 if the doctrine of descent is true for other organisms, it is 

 likely to be true for man also. 



As to the antiquity of the human race, it is certain that 

 men lived in Europe in the later stages of the Ice Age, and 

 there are indications of human life in Pliocene times. No 

 fossil remains are known till the Pleistocene. But, as it is 

 certain that man could not have arisen from any of the 

 known anthropoid apes, and as it is likely that he arose 

 from an ancestral stock common to them and to him, it 

 seems justifiable to date the antiquity of the human race 

 not later than the time when the anthropoid apes are known 

 to have been established as a distinct family. This takes 

 us back to Miocene ages. 



If man was naturally evolved, the factors in the process 

 require elucidation, but in regard to these we can only 

 speculate. From what we know of men and monkeys, it 



