PROGRESS OF LIFE. 603 



nents, as well tropical India as colder Europe. In some regions, the 

 Cretaceous beds are of deep-water origin ; and hence they are not the 

 place to look for terrestrial fossils. But this is not true of the Rocky- 

 Mountain or Atlantic-border deposits of North America, nor of those 

 of many localities on other continents. 



(g.) In the case of Man, the abruptness of transition is still more 

 extraordinary, and especially because it occurs so near to the present 

 time. In the highest Man-ape, the nearest allied of living species has 

 the capacity of the cranium but thirty -four cubic inches ; while the 

 skeleton throughout is not fitted for an erect position, and the fore- 

 limbs are essential to locomotion ; but, in the lowest of existing men, 

 the capacity of the cranium is sixty-eight cubic inches, every bone is 

 made and adjusted for the erect position, and the fore-limbs, instead of 

 being required in locomotion, are wholly taken from the ground, and 

 have other higher uses. Forty years since, Schmerling found fossil 

 bones of ancient Man in Europe ; and for the past fifteen years active 

 search has gone forward for the missing links ; and still the lowest 

 yet found, — and this probably not the oldest, — has a cranium of 

 seventy-five cubic inches capacity. Some of the oldest yet discovered 

 have a large cranium and a high facial angle, although rude in imple- 

 ments and mode of life. No remains bear evidence to less perfect 

 erectness of structure than in civilized man, or to any nearer approach 

 to the Man-ape in essential characteristics. 



The existing Man-apes belong to lines that reached up to them as 

 their ultimatum ; but, of that line which is supposed to have reached 

 upward to Man, not the first link below the lowest level of existing 

 Man has yet been found. This is the more extraordinary, in view of 

 the fact that, from the lowest limit in existing men, there are all pos- 

 sible gradations up to the highest ; while, below that limit, there is an 

 abrupt fall to the ape level, in which the cubic capacity of the brain is 

 one half less. If the links ever existed, their annihilation without a 

 relic is so extremely improbable that it may be pronounced impossible. 

 Until some are found, Science cannot assert that they ever existed. 



The facts which have been stated bear upon the question of the 

 Origin of Species. In order to reach a probable solution of the great 

 problem, various facts and principles from other sources have to be 

 considered, whose discussion here would be out of place. In view of 

 the whole subject, the following appear to be the conclusions most 

 likely to be sustained by further research. 



1. The evolution of the system of life went forward through the 

 derivation of species from species, according to natural methods not 



