226 L. Manouvrier — Pithecanthropus erectus. 



saw, for it is morphologically intermediate, by its skull f 

 between the lowest human races and the anthropoid type. A 

 partisan of the theory of evolution has no repugnance to con- 

 sidering that race as human and to saying "the man of Trinil," 

 since, according to the theory, the chain AD is necessarily un- 

 interrupted. Whatever be the names that we shall judge 

 proper to give to the divers links of this chain, it will be a 

 question always of man more or less inferior as far as the point 

 where, the type of " bipede marcheur " disappearing, we shall 

 emerge from the definite family of Hominidce to enter into 

 another branch of the genealogic tree of Man. 



If it is preferred to settle the question by saying that the 

 skull of Trinil simply puts back the limit L beyond its present 

 position, just as the skulls of Spy have extended this limit as 

 regards the races of Europe : from what I have just said I 

 should not see the slightest objection to that, since it seems to 

 me this limit L is destined to be put back by successive degrees 

 as far as to the level A. 



Theoretically it is highly probable that an anthropomor- 

 phous species, evolving toward the human type, ought to have 

 realized at first in the adult state the characters of superiority 

 that it possessed transitorily in the young state before that evo- 

 lution. The disappearance of these infantile characters of 

 superiority results, as I have shown in a former memoir,* from 

 the precocious arrest of development in the cerebral mantel, 

 when the central and inferior encephalic region as well as the 

 basilar region of the skull continue to grow, keeping pace with 

 the general development of the body. The Pithecanthropus 

 would represent then that inferior phase of human evolution 

 in which the intellectual and cerebral improvement would 

 have been just enough so that the development of the 

 upper portion of the skull would not be left in arrears any 

 more than it is in the young anthropoid compared to the basi- 

 lar development correlative to the corporeal growth in general. 

 Among the lowest existing human races, this stage of evolution 

 is largely exceeded for the normal individual. The difference 

 is yet greater for the average among European races. 



At any rate, the quality of precursor attributed by Mr. Du- 

 bois to his Pithecanthropus reposes upon an ensemble of facts 

 of consequence enough to merit the most serious attention. In 

 addition, behind this hypothesis there arises another to the 

 view of the evolutionist. It is quite natural to propose the 

 question whether the precursor were not something more, that 

 is to say an immediate ancestor of man or of a part of the 

 human species. 



* Sur les modif. du profil encephalique et endocr. dans le passage a l'age adulte, 

 etc. (Bull. Soc. d'Anthr. de Bordeaux, T. 1, 1884). 



