The Ancestry of Man

Abstract

THE theory I have been advancing during the last two years that man is not descended from the apes, but from a primitive common anthropoid stock which gave rise to the apes as well as to our own direct ancestors, has gradually come about from the intensive study of fossil man the world over as well as from our recent and more extended knowledge pf the anatomy and the habits of the apes. This new knowledge reveals data entirely unknown to Darwin, and he to-day would be among the first to grasp the new outlook and give it his unbiased consideration. I regret to find that advanced and entirely unauthorised reports of my presidential address before the American Association for the Advancement of Science at Des Moines were interpreted as disloyal to Darwin's theory of the descent of man. More extended knowledge of the data on which the new point of view is founded will cause such criticism to subside, as disloyalty to the main features of Darwin's theory of the descent of man is unthinkable.