Chap. VI. 
AFFINITIES AND GENEALOGY. 
199 
ever much the conclusion may revolt our pride, that 
our early progenitors would have been properly thus 
designated . 15 But we must not fall into the error of 
supposing that the early progenitor of the whole Simian 
stock, including man, was identical with, or even closely 
resembled, any existing ape or monkey. 
On the Birthplace and Antiquity of Man.— We are 
naturally led to enquire where was the birthplace of 
man at that stage of descent when our progenitors 
diverged from the Catarhine stock. The fact that 
they belonged to this stock clearly shews that they 
inhabited the Old World ; but not Australia nor any 
oceanic island, as we may infer from the laws of geogra- 
phical distribution. In each great region of the world 
the living mammals are closely related to the extinct 
species of the same region. It is therefore probable 
that Africa was formerly inhabited by extinct apes 
closely allied to the gorilla and chimpanzee ; and as 
these two species are now man’s nearest allies, it is 
somewhat more probable that our early progenitors 
lived on the African continent than elsewhere. But 
it is useless to speculate on this subject, for an ape 
nearly as large as a man, namely the Dryopithecus 
of Lartet, which was closely allied to the anthropo- 
morphous Hylobates, existed in Europe during the 
Upper Miocene period ; and since so remote a period 
the earth has certainly undergone many great revo- 
lutions, and there has been ample time for migration 
on the largest scale. 
15 Haekel lias come to this same conclusion. See 1 Ueber die Ent- 
stehung des Menschengeschlechts/ in Virchow’s ‘ Sammlung. gemein. 
wissen. Vortrage/ 1868, s. 61. Also his ‘Natiirliche Schopfungs- 
geschichte,’ 1868, in which he gives in detail his views on the genea- 
logy of man. 
