Page:The Last link.djvu/59



us now recapitulate the ancestral chain of man, as it is set forth in the accompanying diagram (p. 55), which represents our present knowledge of our descent. For simplicity's sake the many side-issues or branches which lead to groups not in the main line of our descent have been left out, or have been indicated merely. Many of the stages are of course hypothetical, arrived at by the study of comparative anatomy and ontogeny; but an example for each of them has been taken from those living or fossil creatures which seem to be their nearest representatives.

1. The most remote ancestors of all living organisms were living beings of the simplest imaginable kind, organisms without organs,