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PITHECANTHROPUS ERECTUS.

these appear less "bestial" the smaller they get, while, on the contrary, the very "bestial" Neanderthal and Spy skulls are very large. The smaller the absolute size of a cranium is, within the same species of mammals, the more significant is its relative size as compared with the rest of the body, and the more reduced are those features of the cranium that have directly to do with the size of the body and are especially related to the skeleton of the face. It is exactly these features that constitute the bestial marks of any skull.

A skull that in comparison with that of normal man is so small and so ape-like in its form that it is declared by not a few experienced anatomists to be the skull of an ape, can not be human!

The fossil skullcap has been, with more or less strong conviction, interpreted as follows:

As that of an ape by— As that of a man by— As an intermediate form by—
R. Virchow.[1] W. Turner.[2] E. Dubois.[3]
W. Krause.[4] D. J. Cunningham.[5] L. Manouvrier.[6]
W. Waldeyer.[7] A. Keith.[8] O. C. Marsh.[9]
O. Hamann.[10] R. Lydekker.[11] E. Haeckel.[12]
H. Ten Kate.[13] Rud. Martin.[14] A. Nehring.[15]
P. Matschie.[16] R. Verneau.[17]
P. Topinard.[18] A. Pettit.[19]

In opposition to the view of the human character of the fossil skull, the two other views taken together constitute a majority, which certainly would be considerably greater, namely, by an increase of the pithecanthropists, if all the learned people who have expressed an opinion upon this fundamental specimen had openly published their views about it. It may also appear questionable whether this majority might not be increased through later expressions of the authors above cited.

  1. Verhandl. Berl. Anthrop. Ges. 1895, pp. 81, 336, 435, and Die Nation, 1895, No. 4, p. 53.
  2. Journal of Anatomy and Physiology, 1895, vol. 29, pp. 424–445.
  3. Jaarbock v. h. Mynwezen in Nederlandsch Indie, 1892. Pithecanthropus erectus, etc., Batavia, 1894. Leidener Zool. Congress, September 21, 1895. Roy. Dublin Society, November 20, 1895. Anthrop. Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, November 25, 1895. Berliner Gesellschaft f. Anthropol., December 14, 1895, etc.
  4. Ibid.,p.78.
  5. Nature, vol. 51, 1895, pp. 428–429.
  6. Bulletin Soc. d' Anthrop. de Paris, 1895 (6), 6, p. 12; 47 Revue Scientifique, série 4, tome 5, Mars 7, 1896, pp. 289–299.
  7. Ibid., p. 88, and Anthrop. Congress, Kassel, 1895.
  8. Science Progress, 1895, vol. 3, pp. 348–369, and Proceed. Anat. Soc. February, 1895.
  9. American Journal of Science, 1895, vol. 69, pp. 144–147.
  10. Gegenwart, Januar, 1895, p. 5.
  11. Nature, vol. 51, 1895, p. 291.
  12. E. Haeckel, Systematische Phylogenie der Wirbeltiere, Berlin, 1895, p. 633.
  13. Nederlandsch Koloniaal Centraalblad, 1895, p. 128.
  14. Globus, Bd. 67, 1895, pp. 213–217.
  15. Naturwissenschaftl. Wochenschr., 1895.
  16. Naturwissenschaftl. Wochenschr., Bd. 10, pp. 81, 82.
  17. L'Anthropnlogie, 1895, tome 6, pp. 725, 726.
  18. L'Anthropologie, 1895, tome 6, No. 5, pp. 605–607.
  19. Ibid., p. 726. Earlier (ibid., pp. 65–69) he considered it as human.