Léonce-Pierre Manouvrier

“ But, on the hypothesis here considered, the species Pithecanthropus erectus would not have disappeared. Having become a human race, it could not remain at the same time a race anthropoid. If the Pithecanthropus was only a simple precursor, it was superior enough to the other animals to survive unless the human species, springing up all of a sudden, "from the clay of the earth," did not hasten to annihilate this dangerous competitor. But if the Pithecanthropus was an ancestor, its species lives yet in its human descendants. ”

“ As an intermediate form between man and monkeys, it is difficult to image anything more satisfactory than the skull of Trinil. If this skull, as is probable, is not exceptional for its race, we can count upon finding other specimens approaching still more nearly, either to man or to the monkey. But what the race of Trinil has not yet furnished, have not the lowest human races furnished in abundance? Do there not exist human crania, inferior compared with the average of their race, which show to us all the transitions theoretically desirable between man and the Pithecanthropus? ”

“ But we cannot represent a race by an abnormal skull, and it will be noted in the present instance that the resemblance existing between human skulls more or less affected by microcephaly and the skull of Trinil would not contradict the hypothesis according to which this last would represent an ancestral race. This resemblance, on the contrary, would be perfectly conformable to the theory of evolution, and it exists. Without going beyond civilized races, we know that complete microcephaly carries man back to a level with the monkeys. ”

“ Let us represent by a line AD the entire family of Hominidæ, which, for the theory of evolution, includes, in addition to the genus Homo in its known state CD, an unknown fossil portion CA, connecting the known portion with an anthropoid ancestor whatsoever A. When we say that the individual from Trinil belongs to the human species, that signifies that it can enter into the portion CD within the limit L, which, for the anti-evolutionists, the human species must not overlap. ”

“ If there is a gap between the existing human species and the precursor, the fossil remains of the intermediate races ought none the less to exist. There ought to be the remains of H0, of gibbon z and of Prothylobates. Will these last perhaps reveal a species remarkable in stature and in a relatively superior aptitude for the upright position? That is not necessary theoretically: the diverse species of the genus Hylobates have a conformation which enables them to assume the upright position with ease; the form may have undergone considerable variations after the transformation of the attitude. ”

“ 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 mode of locomotion in harmony with an adaptation instinctively and organically fixed. ”

“ The question does not admit of a mathematical demonstration, but there can be a degree of probability great enough to carry with it conviction. To admit as true, until there is proof to the contrary, a hypothesis which answers to a great number of facts without being contradicted by any, is to act in accordance with the scientific spirit. ”

“ But, if we suppose that collections of crania richer than those that we possess would permit us to find upon human crania all the characters of inferiority noticed on the Pithecanthropus and to a degree as pronounced, the skull from Java would present none the less this peculiarity: that it brings together a group of characters all of them the limit for the human race. ”

“ The fact that the skull from Java bears such a strong morphological resemblance to that of a young anthropoid is of a nature to explain the divergence of opinions, some of which ascribe it to a monkey, others, to the human species. ”

“ It is the superior portion of the intermediate race which can have survived and formed an inferior human race. This latter must then present characters superior to the average of its ancestors, even independently of the progress that this human race can have realized since the Pliocene epoch. The existence of human crania presenting at once the ensemble of the cranial characters of Pithecanthropus has not yet been demonstrated, unless we take into account the microcephaly more or less accentuated, that is to say, a veritable anomaly by arrest of development. ”

“ A very incomplete skull, two molar teeth picked up at a meter's distance from the skull, and a femur lying at some fifteen meters' distance, the whole enveloped in an earthy gang, very hard, and occurring in a bed which included other remains of a Pleistocene fauna to day for the most part extinct—such are the pieces of a more or less human appearance of which the specific determination was in question. ”

“ The Pithecanthropus would represent then that inferior phase of human evolution in which the intellectual and cerebral improvement would have been just enough so that the development of the upper portion of the skull would not be left in arrears any more than it is in the young anthropoid compared to the basilar development correlative to the corporeal growth in general. Among the lowest existing human races, this stage of evolution is largely exceeded for the normal individual. The difference is yet greater for the average among European races. ”

“ And if the human species did not appear by spontaneous generation,—if, on the other hand, the cranial characters of Quaternary man found in Europe represented a phase of evolution very little removed from the existing phase, there is cause for believing that there would be found in Pliocene deposits a race morphologically inferior to that of Neanderthal and of Spy. ”

“ On the other hand, it is too small to be compatible with a normal human intelligence, save among individuals of very small stature having a cranial capacity relatively large with reference to their stature and with reference to the average of their race. But, even discarding the teeth and femur about which there is some doubt, the morphologic characters of the cranium from Java suffice to denote a cerebral volume relatively very weak. ”

“ The skull from Java is no less remarkable in its general form than in its weak capacity. Its entire median curve is extremely elliptic; the forehead is extremely narrow and tapering. The lower portion of the frontal bone above the orbits forms a sort of visor of which the relative prominence surpasses all known proportions in the human species, not excepting, even, the famous Neanderthal skull. ”

“ All the inferior human crania which it would be possible to show as approaching the form of Trinil by certain characters would make up very well for the absence of the better specimens of the race Pithecanthropus. But it will be difficult to find, among normal human skulls, specimens as pithecoid as that of Trinil. We see frequently in a race such and such individual characters recalling an ancestral type, for it is easier to descend than to ascend in matters of evolution ”

“ Mr. Dubois having satisfied himself, at Leyden, that the direct view of the fossil remains from Java contributed much to corroborate his demonstrations, kindly took those remains first to Brussels, then to Paris, then to Dublin, to Edinburgh, London, Berlin and Jena. He will set forth, without doubt, in the near future the happy effects of that scientific tour upon anatomists when he describes the fossil fauna (Upper Pliocene) contemporaneous with the Pithecanthropus. ”

“ It is sufficient for us to know that the femur of Trinil is not that of a monkey but that of an animal maintaining the upright position, an idea which is not in the least disturbed by pathologic considerations. If the femur in question had been completely sound, its form would have approached even more the ordinary human form. ”

“ The difference between the Pithecanthropus and existing man is so small that there is no call to search for an intermediate link. The link is sufficiently represented by the lowest of our savage races; for example, the isolated human skulls, Australian and others, that have already been shown to be very little different in many respects from that of Trinil. ”

“ The truth, which, I think, will appear clearly to all craniologists, is that the skull from Trinil represents the morphologic stage of the young anthropoid, a stage during which these animals approach man in important cranial characters much more nearly than at the adult age. ”

“ That which can have been produced abruptly is the exterior condition from which would have resulted, for an anthropoid race of climbers, the necessity of adopting habitually a mode of locomotion which it was already capable of utilizing occasionally. ”

“ It is by the mode of locomotion of the climber that the hand became, little by little, apt for the function of prehension, then for the function of manipulation, and it is by virtue of the complete emancipation here supposed of the superior member with reference to locomotion that the functions of prehension and of manipulation of the hand have been able to acquire adaptations the most varied. ”

“ The maximum error possible for the separate points of the skull has been limited by correlations so diverse and rigorous that the errors which could have been committed cannot modify them, notably the general form of the skull, properly speaking,, and its orientation. ”

“ It is not certain that the specimens in question belonged to the same individual nor even to a single species, but it is possible, for there is no lack of anatomical correlation among the different pieces. ”

“ That which explains also the divergence in question, is that the human skull drops now and then to a simian level among the microcephalous of all races, and to a level approaching the Pithecanthropus among certain inferior individuals, especially in the lowest savage races. ”

“ As regards the direct morphologic consequences of the change of attitude, we may suppose they were produced with great rapidity, if we are to judge from the multiple skeletal variations caused in man under the influence of the minimum of functional variations compared with those with which we have to do here. ”

“ As regards cerebral increase, it proceeds with such slowness that we can scarcely affirm the fact has been established at all for our European races since prehistoric times. But the cranial capacity of the Pithecanthropus surpassed by about 300 grams that of the largest gorillas. ”

“ The lateral projection of this visor is not less extraordinary and denotes a great depth of the temporal fosses. The frontal region presents a lateral flattening which gives to the ensemble of the cranium a pyriform aspect when seen from above. The posterior parietal region is flat from above downward to a degree no less remarkable. The occipital crest is very thick. ”

“ Dubois, presents characters such that it may have resulted directly and progressively from the transformation of a race of anthropoid climbers. Under these conditions, if the doubt on the subject of the simian origin of Man is only proportionate to the reasons of a scientific order capable of giving rise to it, it seems to me it must be a very slender doubt.
↑ Two illustrated papers on the Pithecanthropus erectus have already appeared in this Journal, both by Professor O. C. Marsh, who from the first regarded this new form as intermediate between man and the higher apes. ”