Présentation de l'éditeur
A ntiquitij and Races of Man The situation may be clarified by two diagrams. The first diagram represents the inaccurate popular view which puts the monkey at the bottom of the line of descent, man at the top, and the missing link in the middle of the straight line. The illogicality of believing that our origin occurred in this manner is apparent as soon as one reflects that according to this scheme the monkey at the beginning and man at the end of the line still survive, whereas the missing link, which is supposed to have connected them, has become extinct. Clearly the relation must be different. Whatever the missing link may have been, the mere fact that he is not now alive on earth means that we must construct our diagram so that it will indicate his past existence as compared with the survival of man and the apes. This nr iasing Link pe MvSS iriQ V-lnU. Mar Fig. 1. Erroneous representation of the descent of man. Fig. 2. More valid representation of the descent of man. means that the missing link must be put lower in the figure than man and the apes, and our illustration therefore takes on the form shown in the second diagram, which may be described as Y-shaped. The stem of the Ydenotes the pre-ancestral forms leading back into other mammalian groujjs and through them if carried far enough down to the amphibians and invertebrates. The missing link comes at the fork of the y. He represents the last point at wliich man inul tlio monkeys were still one and the same, and beyond which they separated and became different.
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books is a publisher of historical writings, such as: Philosophy, Classics, Science, Religion, History, Folklore and Mythology.
Forgotten Books' Classic Reprint Series utilizes the latest technology to regenerate facsimiles of historically important writing
Les informations fournies dans la section « A propos du livre » peuvent faire référence à une autre édition de ce titre.
