SECT. IV.] AFFINITY BETWEEN MAN AND APE. 207 



The question as to the affinity between man and the ape, ap- 

 pears as idle at present as that of the original colour of the first 

 pair, whom Lacepede 1 describes, like Hunter and Link, as 

 black, on account of the greater heat of past periods. Buffon 

 and Blumenbach describe them as white, De Salles and others 

 describe them as brownish-red. We would here observe, that 

 the assertion of such relationship (of the ape and man) is, for him 

 who assumes a corresponding progressive improvement of the 

 physical form with the progress of civilization in the human 

 race, an interesting hypothesis ; whilst he who decides for the 

 permanence of individual human types and different species of 

 animals, with respect to their external and internal constitution, 

 must ascribe to the effects of external influences an unlimited 

 power for the transformation of the ape into man. De Salles 2 

 observes therefore very justly, (f Affirm er la force creatrice des 

 milieux pour un type primitif, c'est a plus forte raison admettre 

 la modification secondaire de ce type quand ? expatriation a 

 change les milieux, c'est-a-dire Pair, la lumiere, Thumidite ou 

 secheresse, la nourriture, Pelevation au-dessus du niveau de la 

 mer." But it has not prevented the committal of this gross 

 eiTor : the so-called races of man are said to represent fixed 

 types, but little changeable by climate, mode of life or mental 

 culture y and yet they are to have originated in consequence of 

 changes of external conditions during the various periods of 

 the history of the globe. 3 Finally, it may be observed, that if 

 man descended from the ape, it is clear that, like the ape, he 

 originally belonged to a tropical climate. 



Though fossil apes have been found in regions which now 

 possess a temperate climate, as Gascony, still the contempo- 

 raneous existence of man remains as yet to be proved ; and if 

 it were proved, it would render the assumption necessary that 

 man existed upon the earth before the present division of the 

 climates. At any rate, it must be conceded that, by the dis- 

 covery of fossil monkeys, the existence of fossil human bones 

 has been rendered less improbable. 



1 " Ages de la nature," i, p. 255, 1830. 

 - " Hist, generale des races hum.," p. 31, 1849. 



3 Compare, as an example of such false reasoning, the essay on human 

 races in the " Deutsche Vierteljahrschrift," ii, p. 170, 1838. 



