﻿lxxxiv PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [May IO/IO, 



among the lower animals, but nothing more definite — of true speech, 

 even in its rudiments, there is no sign. We cannot venture to assert 

 anything as to the rate of its evolution ; it is usually assumed to 

 have been laboriously slow, yet the inspiration of a happy thought 

 sometimes leads to unexpectedly rapid developments. 



But, whether fast or slow, we may feel sure that the evolution of 

 this faculty was accompanied by a corresponding evolution of the 

 structure of the brain. The motor-centres which govern the muscu- 

 lature of the vocal organs were immediately concerned ; but still 

 more important in its effects was the opportunity afforded for the 

 exchange of ideas, as well as for their registration, accumulation, 

 and co-ordination. Under this stimulus, if any, the brain might 

 escape from the limitation which restricts its size in the apes and 

 acquire that more ample volume which the increasing operations of 

 the mind entailed. 



In connexion with all speculations concerning the origin of Man 

 there exists a preliminary difficulty which deserves our serious 

 consideration. Whatever views we may hold as to the true 

 sequence of events there can be no doubt that the process of human 

 evolution extended over a considerable interval of time, and during 

 this period ancestral Man was exposed to all the dangers which 

 accompany phylogenetic infancy. By what means, then, was his 

 existence secured? A man without weapons plunged into the 

 midst of the savage wild is of all animals the most helpless. The 

 man-like apes, although they have already exchanged claws for 

 very human-looking nails, still retain formidable canine teeth ; in 

 the gibbon these are provided with a posterior edge of razor-like 

 keenness, and in the gorilla they are veritable tusks. Man alone 

 among the Anthropoids is destitute of natural weapons. 



Some distinguished writers, Schcetensack x and Klaatsch, for 

 instance, suggest that during his transformation ancestral Man 

 found an asylum in Australia ; and there secure, as in an earlier 

 imagined paradise, from large and fierce carnivora, he acquired a 

 walking foot by climbing trees with the aid of a rope, and learnt to 

 speak by listening to the songs of singing birds. 2 



1 O. Scbootensack, ' Die Bedeutung Australiens fur die Heraubildung des- 

 Menschen aus einer niedereu Form ' Zeitsehr. f. Ethn. vol. xxxiii (1901) 

 pp. 127-54. 



2 H. Klaatscb, ' Entstehung & Entwickelung des Menschengeschlechtes ' 

 Weltall & Menscbbeit, vol. ii (1902) pp. 204 & 206 : ' Die Belauscbung der 

 Stimme der Vogel .... mag auf die Forderung der Spracbfertigkeit uncL 

 darnit auf die Blebung der geistigen Fahigkeiten von Bedeutung gewesen. 



