The human species

by A. de Quatrefages

IV. In attributing a tail to our first direct ancestors Darwin connects him with the type of tailed catarrhines, and consequently removes him a stage backward in the scale of evolutions. The English naturalist is not satisfied to take his stand upon the ground of his own doctrines, and, like Haeckel, on this point places himself in direct variance with one of the fundamental laws which constitute the principal charms of Darwinism, whose force I am far from denying.

In fact, in the theory of Darwin, transmutations do not take place, either by chance or in every direction. They are ruled by certain laws which are due to the organisation itself. If an organism is once modified in a given direction, it can undergo secondary or tertiary transmutations, but will still preserve the impress of the original. It is the law of permanent characterisation which alone permits Darwin to explain the filiation of groups, their characteristics and their numerous relations. It is by virtue of this law that all the descendants of the first mollusc have been molluscs; all the descendants of the first vertebrate have been vertebrates. It is clear that this constitutes one of the foundations of the doctrine.

It follows that two beings belonging to two distinct types can be referred to a common ancestor, whose characters were not clearly developed, but the one cannot be the descendant of the other.

Now man and apes present a very striking contrast in respect to type. Their organs, as I have already remarked, correspond almost exactly term for term; but these organs are arranged after a very different plan. In man they are so arranged that he is essentially a walker, while in apes they necessitate his being a climber just as strongly.

There is here an anatomical and mechanical distinction which had already been proved, as regards the inferior apes, by the works of Vicq d’Azyr, Lawrence, Serres, etc. The investigations of Duvernoy on the gorilla, of Gratiolet and M. d’Alix upon the chimpanzee, have established the fact that the anthropomorphous apes possess the same fundamental character in every point. Moreover, a glance at the page where Huxley has figured side by side a human skeleton and the skeletons of the most highly developed apes, is a sufficiently convincing proof of the fact.

The consequence of these facts, from the point of view of the logical application of the law of permanent characterisation, is that man cannot be descended from an ancestor who is already characterised as an ape, any more than a catarrhine tailless ape can be descended from a tailed catarrhine. A walking animal cannot be descended from a climbing one. This was clearly understood by Vogt. In placing man among the primates he declares, without hesitation, that the lowest class of apes have passed the landmark (the common ancestor) from which the different types of this family have originated and diverged.

We must then place the origin of man beyond the last ape if we wish to adhere to one of the laws most emphatically necessary to the Darwinian theory. We then come to the prosimiæ of Haeckel, the loris, indris, etc. But these animals also are climbers; we must go further, therefore, in search of our first direct ancestor. But the genealogy traced by Haeckel brings us from the latter to the marsupials.

From man to the kangaroo the distance is certainly great. Now neither living nor extinct fauna show the intermediate types which ought to serve as land-marks. This difficulty causes but slight embarrassment to Darwin. We know that he considers the want of information upon similar questions as a proof in his favour. Haeckel doubtless is just as little embarrassed. He admits the existence of an absolutely theoretical pithecoid man, and it is not the only instance in which he proceeds in a similar manner in order to complete his genealogical table. Take as an instance his words upon the sozoura (14th stage), an amphibious animal which is equally unknown to science. “The proof of its existence arises from the necessity of an intermediate type between the 13th and the 14th stage.”

Thus, since it has been proved that, according to Darwinism itself, the origin of man must be placed beyond the 18th stage, and since it becomes, in consequence necessary to fill up the gap between marsupials and man, will Haeckel admit the existence of four unknown intermediate groups, instead of one? Will be complete his genealogy in this manner? It is not for me to answer.

V. Darwin and Haeckel will most certainly think it very strange that a representative of the old school, a man who believes in the reality of species, should have the pretension to be better acquainted with the application of the laws of Darwinism than themselves, and to point out serious lapses in the applications they have made. Let us take our stand then on the ground of facts. There we shall at once find proof that this genealogy is wrong throughout, and is founded on a material anatomical error.