LECTUKE XVI. 



467 



sliort, we cannot see why American races of man may not be 

 derived from American apes, Negroes from African apeSj or 

 Negritos, perhaps, from Asiatic apes ! 



On examining the species of mankind and their history, we 

 arrive at similar results. We have traced the plurality of 

 species, not merely in the historic, but also in the pre- 

 historic period ; we have shown that no existing species present 

 a greater contrast than did, e.g., the cave-men of Belgium and 

 the Rhenish provinces, and the Lapps of the stone-period. 

 This plurality and diversity which we find in the primitive 

 races of Europe — that is to say, upon a very limited space, 

 will also be found in the primitive races of other parts of the 

 world. At all events, all the facts which carry us back to the 

 oldest history of Asia, Africa, and America admit of no other 

 inference. 



But if this plurality of races be a fact, as well established 

 as their constancy of characters, despite of the many inter- 

 mixtures through which the natural primitive races had to 

 pass ; if this constancy be another proof for the great antiquity 

 of the various types, for their occurrence in the diluvium, or 

 even in older strata — then all these facts do not lead us to one 

 common fundamental stock, to one intermediate form between 

 man and ape, but to many parallel series, which, more or less 

 locally confined, might have been developed from the various 

 parallel series of the apes. 



It is not unworthy of notice that the fossil apes of the ter- 

 tiary period, from which man perhaps might have issued, are 

 much more widely spread than the present monkeys, and that 

 they follow in their distribution the same laws as at present. 

 The monkeys found in Europe, as high up as England, are all 

 narrow-nosed, whilst those found in American caves are all flat- 

 nosed. The difference between the Fauna of the Old, and that 

 of the New World, as now observed, existed already then — there 

 was no road which led from South America to Europe. Bat if 

 apes became developed into men, they had in the old world a 

 range from the equator up to England, and could thus form 

 the autochthonic races upon the various spots, where we have 

 found the oldest species of mankind. This assumption equally 



