nt us with more
marked pithecoid characters than such as are to be found among the
existing races of mankind.[4] But, if this be so, then the only just
conclusion to be drawn from the evidence as it stands is, that the men
of the Quaternary epoch may have proceeded from a lower type of
humanity, though their remains hitherto discovered show no definite
approach towards that type. The evidence is not inconsistent with the
doctrine of evolution, though it does not help it. If Professor
Virchow had paid as much attention to comparative anatomy and
palaeontology as he has to anthropology, he would, I doubt not, be
aware that the equine quadrupeds of the Quaternary period do not
differ from existing _Equidae_ in any more important respect than these
last differ from one another; and he would know that it is,
nevertheless, a well-established fact that, in the course of the
Tertiary period, the equine quadrupeds have undergone a series of
changes exactly such as the doctrine of evolution requires. Hence
sound analogical reasoning justifies the expectation that, when we
obtain the remains of Pliocene, Miocene, and Eocene _Anthropidae_, they
will present us with the like series of gradations, notwithstanding
the fact, if it be a fact, that the Quaternary men, like the
Quaternary horses, differ in no essential respect from those which now
live.

I believe that the state of our knowledge on this question is still
justly summed up in words written some seventeen years ago:--

"In conclusion, I may say, that the fossil remains of man hitherto
discovered do not seem to me to take us appreciably nearer to that
lower pithecoid form by the modification of which he has probably
become what he is. And considering what is now known of the most
ancient races of men; seeing that they fashioned flint axes, and flint
knives, and bone skewers of much the same pattern as those fabricated
by the lowest savages at the present day, and that we have every
reason to believe the habits and modes of living of such people to
have remained the same from the time of the mammoth and the tichorhine
rhinoceros till now, I do not know that the result is other than might
be expected."[5]

I have seen no reason to change the opinion here expressed, and so far
from the fact being in the slightest degree opposed to a belief in the
evolution of man, all that has been learned of late years respecting
the relation of the Recent and Quaternary to the Tertiary mam