Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/104

 90 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

and more carnivorous; his activity is not solely muscular, but becomes nervous and cerebral, then psychic. The latter con- tinues to increase in importance. Nitrogenous nourishment is required. Then man becomes carnivorous and omnivorous, preserving both of the dental systems of his ancestors.

Haeckel, who supports the hypothesis of the monophyletic origin of the human species, places the cradle of humanity on a continent now submerged by the Indian Ocean, which joins Madagascar and Africa on the west, India and Indo-China on the north; on the east it extends to the Philippine Islands and Borneo; on the south it extends to the tropic of Capricorn. This continent, Lemuria, was, according to him, the source of the different human species distributed over the surface of the earth. The Englishman, Sclater, has called this continent Lemuria after the prosimians which characterize it.

When he published his Creation naturelle, Haeckel wrote (p. 613, French translation) that he placed, hypothetically, the first existence of man on this continent, part of which has dis- appeared and of which there remain only fragments in southern Asia and in the Indian Ocean. There was the first native land of man, of this hypothetical Homo primigenius, having descended from the anthropoid monkeys, but of which there are no fossil remains known. This intermediary form between monkey and man, according to his hypothesis, was very dolichocephalic and prognathic. His arms were relatively longer and stronger, his legs shorter and more slender, etc., etc. Although the existence of Lemuria is now considered sufficiently proved, this Homo primigenius has been discovered at Trimil, in one of the Sunda Islands in Java, and this Pithecanthropus erectus, an intermediate form between the gibbon and man, belongs to the Tertiary epoch. Thence, a propos of this discovery, G. de Mortillet, in Formation de la nation fran$aise ? draws the following conclusion:

Man, the product of slow transformations and innumerable and successive modifications arising in the origin of living beings, is a mammal occupying the summit of the animal scale. His immediate precursor is the Pithecan- thropus erectus of Java, which has strong affinities with the gibbons and

'Paris: Alcan, 1897; pp. 221 ff.