VII 
“THE DESCENT OF MAN” 
By G. SCHWALBE. 
Professor of Anatomy in the University of Strassburg. 
THE problem of the origin of the human race, of the descent of 
man, is ranked by Huxley in his epoch-making book Man’s Place in 
Nature, as the deepest with which biology has to concern itself, “the 
question of questions,’—the problem which underlies all others. In 
the same brilliant and lucid exposition, which appeared in 1863, soon 
after the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species, Huxley stated his 
own views in regard to this great problem. He tells us how the idea 
of a natural descent of man gradually grew up in his mind. It was 
especially the assertions of Owen in regard to the total difference 
between the human and the simian brain that called forth strong 
dissent from the great anatomist Huxley, and he easily succeeded in 
showing that Owen’s supposed differences had no real existence; he 
even established, on the basis of his own anatomical investigations, 
the proposition that the anatomical differences between the Marmoset 
and the Chimpanzee are much greater than those between the 
Chimpanzee and Man. 
But why do we thus introduce the study of Darwin’s Descent of 
Man, which is to occupy us here, by insisting on the fact that Huxley 
had taken the field in defence of the descent of man in 1863, while 
Darwin’s book on the subject did not appear till 1871? It is in order 
that we may clearly understand how it happened that from this time 
onwards Darwin and Huxley followed the same great aim in the most 
intimate association. 
Huxley and Darwin working at the same Problema maximum! 
Huxley fiery, impetuous, eager for battle, contemptuous of the 
resistance of a dull world, or energetically triumphing over it. Darwin 
calm, weighing every problem slowly, letting it mature thoroughly,— 
not a fighter, yet having the greater and more lasting influence by virtue 
of his immense mass of critically sifted proofs. Darwin’s friend, Huxley, 
was the first to do him justice, to understand his nature, and to find 
in it the reason why the detailed and carefully considered book 
