90 ORGANIC EVOLUTION 



apparent difficulties of the evolutionary theory, we 

 may return to our consideration of the importance 

 which attaches to the conclusion that no living ape 

 can be regarded as representative of the simian 

 ancestors of man. Its importance, as we have seen, 

 lies in the fact that it immediately disposes of the 

 objection that we cannot produce any evidence of 

 the " missinsr-link." There is no missing-link : no 

 more than there is a missing-link between a man 

 and his first cousin. This is the sufficient reason why 

 we have no evidence of one. Man and the anthro- 

 poid apes must be regarded as the descendants of a 

 common simian ancestor to which no name can be 

 attached. Some interest certainly invests in the 

 inquiry as to which of the extant anthropoids may 

 be regarded as most nearly resembling their com- 

 mon ancestors and ours. Opinion has varied from 

 time to time, but recent work done in the anthro- 

 pological department at Cambridge appears to en- 

 dorse the old opinion that this distinction belongs 

 to the gibbon. In other words, this is the least 

 specialised of the extant anthropoid apes. 



Reference has already been made to the so-called 

 pithecanthropus crectus, the only known evidence of 

 whose existence consists of the remains discovered 

 in Java. Popular writers have described this ape- 

 man a as the " missing-link " ; but this perpetuation 

 of a wholly misleading term is to be deprecated. If 

 the 'pithecanthropus must be called the " missing- 

 link," it must be clearly understood that he is the 

 missing-link not between man and any known ape, 



1 We have seen that some doubt attaches to the most favoured 



interpretation of Dubois' discovery. 



