120 ANIMAL LIFE AND HUMAN PEOGRESS 



those which comprise what may be called definite human 

 specialisations, those definite " progressive " features which 

 distinguish Homo as a zoological type. 



Such a finding places a topsy-turvy interpretation upon 

 the end of the scale of life. Anaptomorphus of the Eocene 

 and Tarsius of to-day, though speciaUsed creatures, are in 

 some respects the most primitive members of the Anthro- 

 poidea. Homo is speciahsed in his own definite directions, 

 but is nevertheless next to this basal stock in order of general 

 primitiveness. The anthropoid apes are speciahsed in their 

 own different ways, but have an underlying primitiveness 

 which links them to Homo. The monkeys both of the Old 

 World and the New, while resembhng the anthropoid apes 

 in a general way, have departed in more respects from the 

 basal Eocene type of the primitive ancestral form. 



To the anatomist, Man must ever figure as a remarkably 

 primitive Eutherian mammal. He is speciahsed from the 

 basal stock in two main directions, (1) in the development of 

 the brain, and (2) in the attainment of the upright position. 



Probably no subject has proved more destructive of the 

 reputations of anatomists than attempts at finding absolute 

 distinctions between the brain of Man and the brains of the 

 anthropoid apes. In the immediate post -Darwinian days 

 the brain was regarded as the last hope of the older school, 

 for surely, people argued, if we have to admit that the hmnan 

 body may prove upon dissection to be very hke that of a 

 chimpanzee, the human brain must show the utter and un- 

 fathomable distinction which separates Man from all the rest 

 of the animal kingdom. And yet the champions of human 

 cerebral distinctions fared very badly under criticism from 

 the rising school. The disastrous argument about the hippo- 

 campus minor, which found its echo even in Charles Kingsley's 

 Water-Babies, and in the pages of Punch, need not be recalled. 

 The whole tedious literature which grew aroimd the develop- 

 ment of the " posterior lobe " leads to nowhere, and may be 

 omitted. And yet, though all who sought to see anything 

 but a simple evolution of the human brain from lemur, monkey 

 and ape, came badly out of the argument, I beUeve that there 



