The hypothesis of a simple precursor can be accepted without repugnance independent of the doctrine of evolution. It simply places an intermediate species between anthropoid and man and confirms once more the adage: Natura non faeit saltus. It reduces itself to a simple verification. In favor of this hypothesis there will be, on the one hand, all the arguments produced to demonstrate that it is a question of the anthropoid species, but veritably simian, until then unknown; and on the other hand, all the arguments produced to demonstrate that it is a question of the human species.
The hypothesis of a veritable ancestor will profit by all these arguments, for all will tend to establish the existence of an uninterrupted chain. In insisting upon the simian characters we strengthen, voluntarily or not, the affiliation of the Pithecanthropus with monkeys; in insisting upon the human characters, we render more probable the affiliation of the intermediate species with the human.
The scientific event due to the laborious researches of Mr. Eugene Dubois is of a nature to give joy to all friends of science, but it seems to be more particularly agreeable to evolutionists, that is to say, to those who desire and pretend to explain why natura non facit saltus. For these last, the question whether the Pithecanthropus ought to be classed with the genus Homo sapiens depends upon the value attached to the qualifying word sapiens, the value of which is already very relative. As to the question of species it is, for the evolutionist, like the preceding, a simple question of degree of morphologic differentiation.
It is none the less interesting to search for the particular simian genus to which would fall the honor of becoming founder of the human branch, in other words the known anthropoid genus to which is allied the intermediate Pithecanthropus.
Mr. Dubois has thought of the genus Hylobates (Gibbon) and the general opinion at present seems to accord with this view. All the appearances are in its favor, because of the relatively grand analogies which exist between the conformation of the gibbon and that of man.[1]
The almost vertical attitude of the Gibbon corresponds to the very marked anatomic particularities which would render easy the human transformation. The conditions of this transformation, that is to say of the passage from the state of climber to that of "marcheur bipède," ought to have been very imperious, for it is difficult to believe that, without that, a race of climbers took spontaneously the initiative in renouncing a
- ↑ Paul Broca: L'ordre des Primates (Bull. de la Soc. d'Anthr., T. iv, p. 228, 1869).
