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NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 



The Last Link. By Ernst Haeckel (Jena) ; with Notes and 

 Biographical Sketches by Hans Gadow, F.R.S. Adam 

 and Charles Black. 



One of the most interesting, and certainly most suggestive 

 addresses delivered at the recent meeting of the International 

 Congress of Zoology at Cambridge, was that of Prof. Haeckel 

 " On our Present Knowledge of the Descent of Man." This 

 has now been published in book form, as above ; with many 

 " additions and notes " by the Professor's old pupil, Dr. 

 H. Gadow. 



Man's place in Zoology is still, as Huxley described it, " the 

 question of questions for mankind"; and if that remark was true 

 in 1863, it is still more pressing to-day, when, as the author 

 most truly observes : " At the end of the nineteenth century, the 

 age of * natural science,' the department of knowledge that has 

 made most progress is zoology." The position of man in the 

 animal world is now considered with calmness and discussed 

 with urbanity. It was even quite recently, when brought into 

 line with science, or discussed on an old and dear tradition, 

 described, on one side, as " a tale told by an idiot," or, on the 

 other, as a matter of " sound and fury signifying nothing." 

 Both sides have come nearer to each other with further knowledge, 

 and all who study the question now admit the evidence of an 

 evolutionary plan. Whether that plan is simply the result of 

 natural forces, or an evidence of a design beyond our cognition, 

 is a question not for these pages. 



We can only summarise Prof. Haeckel's views on this problem. 

 He considers the celebrated fossil Pithecanthropus erectus, dis- 

 covered recently by Dr. Dubois in Java, as a form which connected 

 primitive man with the anthropoid apes, and as indeed the long- 

 searched-for " missing link." That man was " known with cer- 



