INTRODUCTION 19 



of most competent judges, has conclusively shown that in 

 every visible character man differs less from the higher apes 

 than these do from the lower members of the same order 

 of Primates. 



This work contains hardly any original facts in rega,rd to 

 man ; but as the conclusions at which I arrived, after drawing 

 up a rough draught, appeared to me interesting, I thought 

 that they might interest others. It has often and confidently 

 been asserted that man's origin can never be known; but 

 ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does 

 knowledge; it is those who know little, and not those 

 who know much, who so positively assert that this or that 

 problem will never be solved by science. The conclusion 

 that man is the co-descendant with other species of some 

 ancient, lower, and extinct form, is not in any degree new. 

 Lamarck long ago came to this conclusion, which has lately 

 been maintained by several eminent naturalists and philoso- 

 phers; for instance, by Wallace, Huxley, Lyell, Vogt, Lub- 

 bock, Biichner, EoUe, etc.,' and especially by Hackel. This 

 last naturalist, besides his great work, "Generelle Morpholo- 

 gie" (1866), has recently (1868, with a second edit, in 1870) 

 published his "Natiirliche Schopfungsgeschichte," in which 

 he fully discusses the genealogy of man. If this work had 

 appeared before my essay had been written, I should prob- 

 ably never have completed it. Almost all the conclusions 

 at which I have arrived I find confirmed by this naturalist, 

 whose knowledge on many points is much fuller than mine. 

 Wherever I have added any fact or view from Prof. Hackel's 



' As the works of the first-named authors are so well known, I need not 

 give the titles; but as those of the latter are less well known in England, I 

 will give them: "Seohs Vorlesungen tiher.die Darwin'sche Theorie": zweite 

 Auflage, 1868, von Dr. L. Biichner; translated into French under the title 

 "Conferences sur la Theorie Darwinienne," 1869. "Der Mensch, im Lichte 

 der Darwin'sche Lehre," 1865, von Dr. F. RoUe. I will not attempt to give 

 references to all the authors who have taken the same side o£ the question. 

 Thus Gr. Canestrini has published ("Annuario della Soc. d. Nat.," Modena, 

 186'?, p. 81) a very curious paper on rudimentary characters, as bearing on the 

 origin of man. Another work has (1869) been published by Dr. Francesco 

 Barrage, bearing in Italian the title of "Man, made in the image of &od, was 

 also made in -the image of the ape." 



