120 The Development Theory: A Review. 



of these are mentioned, the vermiform appendage, the coccyx or 

 rudimentary tail, and the eye, in which Helmholz has pointed 

 out six decided optical defects. We may here remark that a 

 valuable and interesting paper by Dr. Clevenger on this topic 

 may be found in the American Naturalist for 1884 containing 

 additional facts and establishing some physical disadvantages of 

 the erect position in man. 



Dwelling for a short time on the low and degraded moral con- 

 dition of savage man, the author adds : 



" The most inhuman monster of crime that ever was condem- 

 ned by a court and executed by an officer of the law would, among 

 such tribes as those of the Australian natives, pass for the embod- 

 iment of all excellencies, and rise to an uncontested chieftainship. 

 Yet out of such elements, and from the midst of such degradation, 

 scientists must conclude that the human race as it is now has 

 risen." 



A few pages on the fossil remains of man conclude the work, 

 showing that archaeology has already amassed sufficient facts to 

 prove man's presence on earth for a vastly longer time than was 

 formerly supposed, or, at all events, the existence of a creature, man, 

 ape, or intermediate, capable of forming and using weapons and 

 tools of chipped flint. Bones are as yet very scarce, but implements 

 are abundant, of whose artificial nature no doubt can exist. As 

 the worker was before his work, so the maker of these tools, what- 

 ever he was, must have existed before they were made. 



Twenty- five years ago, the antiquity of man and his develop- 

 ment from lower animals were subjects mentioned only with bated 

 breath as awful possibilities of which heretical scientists were 

 beginning to speak. But the world moves, Kent's cavern and 

 many others have been ransacked, river-gravels have been search- 

 ed, lake-beds examined, and peat-mosses and kitchen-middens dug 

 over, until now the wealth of evidence is bewildering to all but the 

 antiquarian specialist. The proof of man's antiquity is unassail- 

 able, and that for his development is rapidly becoming unanswer- 

 able. 



In closing this sketch of a subject for which the little book 

 noticed at the outset has furnished a text, we need only say that 

 to the general reader who wishes to obtain some firm foundation 

 of fact regarding the theory of evolution, and who has neither the 



