THE ORIGIN OF MAN. 259 
him. For tne Anthropologist, therefore, the Pro-anthropos is 
not an object of discussion founded on fact. Perhaps someone 
may have seen him in a dream, but when awake he will never be 
able to say that he has come across him. Even the hope of his 
future discovery has fallen far into the background, he is now 
scarcely spoken of, for we live not in a world of imagination or 
dreams, but in an actual world, and this has shown itself extremely 
unyielding. At the time that we were together in Innsbruck, 
it seemed as if in the storm it might be possible to prove the 
course of descent from the ape or some other animal to man. At 
present, to our pain be it said, it is not even possible os us to 
show the descent of single races from each other. 
“Tt was not then known that it is no easy matter to prove that 
man is the brother of all other men, and yet men made efforts to 
teach how all the various races are connected together. Men were 
inclined, from among the human remains in ancient caves, such 
as the caves of the valley of the Maas, to select certain skulls 
and skeletons as normal types, and from these to reconstruct the 
primeval race. One party said:—‘this race was Mongoloid,’ 
indeed there were many who asserted this; others declared that 
primitive men were Australoid; and just as they happened to hold 
Mongolians or Australians to be the lowest in the scale of races, so, 
they held, must the first Europeans have appeared. We have 
not, however, yet found the original European; possibly, he 
may yet be found. At present we only know that among 
archaic men none have been found that stood nearer the ape 
than men of to-day. The ancients were thoroughly well-formed 
men ; they bore no characteristic marks which we do not meet 
with in the present day among living peoples. There is nota 
single one of them of ever so degraded a constitution that we 
could say, e.g., that he shows the lowest form of skull. Twenty 
years ago little was known of the forms of skulls of the lowest un- 
civilized tribes.* That was one reason why men judged somewhat 
over-hastily. On the other hand there were the boldest ideas of 
what the physical constitution of low races was. Men had no clear 
idea of the constitution of the Patagonians, Esquimaux, etc. At 
present there is hardly one entirely unknown race upon the earth. 
* Naturvilker. Dr. Leitner remarks :—“ Literally ‘ Nature’s races,’ as 
distinguished from peoples living in a state of civilization.” —Ep. 
