200 
THE DESCENT OF MAN. 
Part I. 
At the period and place, whenever and wherever it 
may have been, when man first lost his hairy covering, 
he probably inhabited a hot country; and this would 
have been favourable for a frugiferous diet, on which, 
judging from analogy, he subsisted. We are far from 
knowing how long ago it was when man first diverged 
from the Catarkine stock ; but this may have occurred 
at an epoch as remote as the Eocene period; for the 
higher apes had diverged from the lower apes as 
early as the Upper Miocene period, as shewn by the 
existence of the Dryopithecus. We are also quite 
ignorant at how rapid a rate organisms, whether high 
or low in the scale, may under favourable circumstances 
be modified : we know, however, that some have retained 
the same form during an enormous lapse of time. From 
what we see going on under domestication, we learn that 
within the same period some of the co-descendants of 
the same species may be not at all changed, some a 
little, and some greatly changed. Thus it may have 
been with man, who has undergone a great amount of 
modification in certain characters in comparison with 
the higher apes. 
The great break in the organic chain between man 
and his nearest allies, which cannot be bridged over 
by any extinct or living species, has often been ad- 
vanced as a grave objection to the belief that man 
is descended from some lower form ; but this objection 
will not appear of much weight to those who, convinced 
by general reasons, believe in the general principle 
of evolution. Breaks incessantly occur in all parts 
of the series, some being wide, sharp and defined, others 
less so in various degrees ; as between the orang and 
its nearest allies — between the Tarsius and the other 
Lemuridae— between the elephant and in a more 
striking manner between the Ornithorhynchus or 
