240 Proceedings of Royal Society of EdAiiburgli. [sess. 
planete. Cela rappelle les linguistes decouvrant aussi les Aryens 
rien que par des donn6es de linguistique ” {Le Preliistoriciue, 
p. 104). 
The only fact bearing on the probable origin of Man in the 
Tertiary period which strikes me as worth mentioning is that, in 
cranial development, the Simian races of to-day appear to have made 
no advance on those of the Pliocene period. This has been shown 
by the facial and cranial characters of Mesopithecus Pentelici, found 
at Pikermi, at the foot of Mount Pentelicus, in Greece. The lower 
jaw of Dryopitliecus Fontan% also, has a less Simian form, and 
approaches more to that of Man than those of the present anthro- 
poid apes. This is what might be expected, as, between Man and 
the higher apes, there is no field of existence for an intermediate 
being. He must compete either on brute principles or on those 
evolved by human ingenuity. Since Man discovered, and rapidly 
monopolised, the principles of intelligence, there was only one 
platform for the successful struggle for existence ; and during this 
period, not only have apes remained stationary, or perhaps retro- 
graded, but many of the less progressive human races have fallen 
into the background and died out. Thus the gap between civilised 
Man and brute creation has widened at both ends by the progressive 
development of the former, on the one hand, and the degeneration 
of the latter, on the other. The demand to produce the “ missing 
links ” of this transformation derives its plausibility from ignorance. 
That any trace of such links would remain to this day is due to a 
mere accident in nature. How rarely do the conditions occur 
which preserve the body of a land animal for centuries ; and should 
they occasionally take place, how small is the chance of finding its 
fossilised remains at the present time. Fossil monkeys have been 
found in considerable numbers in Miocene and Pliocene deposits in 
Greece, France, and England. This indicates that they were com- 
paratively numerous in these ages, and that the climate was then 
much milder than that which now obtains in the corresponding 
latitudes in Europe. 
Palaeontological researches have not sensibly altered the question 
of man’s relationship with the lower animals since 1864, when 
Prof. Huxley summed up the problem as follows : — “ That the 
Neanderthal skull exhibits the lowest type of human cranium at 
