210 THE DESCENT OF MAN 



the savage races throughout the world. At the same time 

 the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has 

 remarked," will no doubt be exterminated. The break be- 

 tween man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for 

 it will intervene between man in a more civilized state, as 

 we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape 

 as low as a babooa, instead of, as now, between the negro 

 or Australian and the gorilla. 



With respect to the absence of fossil remains, serving 

 to connect man with his ape-like progenitors, no one will 

 lay much stress on this fact who reads Sir C. Lyell's discus- 

 sion," where he shows that in all the vertebrate classes the 

 discovery of fossil remains has been a very slow and fortui. 

 tons process. Nor should it be forgotten that those regions 

 which are the most likely to afford remains connecting man 

 with some extinct ape-like creature have not as yet beea 

 searched by geologists. 



Lower Stages in the Genealogy of Man. — We have seen 

 that man appears to have diverged from the Catarrhine or 

 Old World division of the Simiadse, after these had diverged 

 from the New World division. We will now endeavor to 

 follow the remote traces of his genealogy, trusting priaci 

 pally to the mutual affinities between the various class&o 

 and orders, with some slight reference to the periods, as far 

 as ascertained, of their successive appearance on the earth. 

 The Lemuridse stand below and near to the Simiadse, and 

 constitute a very distinct family of the Primates, or, accord- 

 ing to Hackel and others, a distinct Order. " This group is 

 diversified and broken to an extraordinary degree, and in- 

 cludes many aberrant forms. It has, therefore, probably 

 Buffered much extinction. Most of the remnants survive 

 on islands, such as Madagascar and the Malayan archipelago, 

 where they have not been exposed to so severe a competition 



'» "Anthropological Review," April, 1861, p. 236. 



>» "Elements of Geology," 1866, pp. 583-685. "Antiquity of Man," 1863, 

 p. 145. 



