sia in the
Miocene or early Pliocene were such as to compel the descent of the
pre-human ancestor from the trees, a step which was absolutely essential
to further human development." Continental elevation and consequent
aridity led to a dwindling of the forests, and forced the ape-man to
come to earth. "And at the last arose the man."

According to Lull, the descent from the trees was associated with the
assumption of a more erect posture, with increased liberation and
plasticity of the hand, with becoming a hunter, with experiments towards
clothing and shelter, with an exploring habit, and with the beginning of
communal life.

It is a plausible view that the transition from the humanoid to the
human was effected by a discontinuous variation of considerable
magnitude, what is nowadays called a _mutation_, and that it had mainly
to do with the brain and the vocal organs. But given the gains of the
arboreal apprenticeship, the stimulus of an enforced descent to terra
firma, and an evolving brain and voice, we can recognise accessory
factors which helped success to succeed. Perhaps the absence of great
physical strength prompted reliance on wits; the prolongation of infancy
would help to educate the parents in gentleness; the strengthening of
the feeling of kinship would favour the evolution of family and social
life--of which there are many anticipations at lower levels. There is
much truth in the saying: "Man did not make society, society made man."

A continuation of the story will deal with the emergence of the
primitive types of man and the gradual ascent of the modern species.

Sec. 4

Tentative Men

So far the story has been that of the sifting out of a humanoid stock
and of the transition to human kind, from the ancestors of apes and men
to the man-ape, and from the man-ape to man. It looks as if the
sifting-out process had proceeded further, for there were several human
branches that did not lead on to the modern type of man.

1. The first of these is represented by the scanty fossil remains known
as _Pithecanthropus erectus_, found in Java in fossiliferous beds which
date from the end of the Pliocene or the beginning of the Pleistocene
era. Perhaps this means half a million years ago, and the remains
occurred along with those of some mammals which are now extinct.
Unfortunately the remains of Pithecanthropus the Erect consisted only of
a skull-cap, a thigh-bone, and two back teeth, so it is not surprisi