VII 
THE ANTIQUITY AND ORIGIN OF MAN 
423 
find some relics of these earlier forms of man along with 
those of animals, which were presumably less abundant. 
Negative evidence of this kind is not very weighty, but still it 
has some value. It has been suggested that as apes are mostly 
tropical, and anthropoid apes are now confined almost ex- 
clusively to the vicinity of the equator, we should expect the 
ancestral forms of man to have inhabited these same localities 
— West Africa and the Malay islands. But this objection is 
hardly valid, because existing anthropoid apes are wholly 
dependent on a perennial supply of easily accessible fruits, 
which is only found near the equator ; while not only had 
the south of Europe an almost tropical climate in Miocene 
times, but we must suppose even the earliest ancestors of 
man to have been terrestrial and omnivorous, since it must 
have taken ages of slow modification to have produced the 
perfectly erect form, the short arms, and the wholly non- 
prehensile foot , 1 which so strongly differentiate man from 
the arboreal apes. 
The conclusion which I think we must arrive at is, that if 
man has been developed from a common ancestor with all 
existing apes, and by no other agencies than such as have affected 
their development , then he must have existed, in something 
approaching his present form, during the Tertiary period — 
and not merely existed, but predominated in numbers, 
wherever suitable conditions prevailed. If, then, continued 
researches in all parts of Europe and Asia fail to bring to 
light any proofs of his presence, it will be at least a pre- 
sumption that he came into existence at a much later date, 
and by a much more rapid process of development. In that 
case it will be a fair argument that, just as he is in his 
mental and moral nature, his capacities and aspirations, so 
infinitely raised above the brutes, so his origin is due, in part, 
1 The common statement of travellers as to savages having great prehensile 
power in the toes has been adopted by some naturalists as indicating an ap- 
proach to the apes. But this notion is founded on a complete misconception. 
Savages pick up objects with their feet, it is true, but always by a lateral 
motion of the toes, which we should equally possess if we never wore shoes or 
stockings. In no savage have I ever seen the slightest approach to opposa- 
bility of the great toe, which is the essential distinguishing feature of apes ; 
nor have I ever seen it stated that any variation in this direction has been 
detected in the anatomical structure of the foot of the lower races. 
