Page:The Last link.djvu/38

26 the rest maintained that they belonged to an intermediate form, which directly connected primitive man with the anthropoid apes. This last view is the right one, and accords with the laws of logical inference. Pithecanthropus erectus of Dubois is truly a Pliocene remainder of that famous group of highest Catarrhines which were the immediate pithecoid ancestors of man. He is, indeed, the long-searched-for 'missing link,' for which, in 1866, I myself had proposed the hypothetical genus Pithecanthropus, species Alalus.

It must, however, be admitted that this opinion is still strongly combated by some distinguished authorities. At the Leyden congress it was attacked by the illustrious pathologist Rudolf Virchow. He, however, is one of the minority of leading men of science who set themselves to refute the theory of Evolution in every possible way. For thirty years he has defended the thesis: 'It is quite certain that man is not a