The question has been much discussed whether the remains are those of Man, or of an ape resembling the Gibbon. The discoverer took a middle course, as indicated by the name he gave them, and held that they belonged to an animal, as yet unknown, intermediate between the Ape and Man; in other words, one of the long-sought "missing links." In this view he is supported by the distinguished French anthropologist, M. Manouvrier, and some others. The leading authorities in England hold that the bones are human, but admit their remote antiquity and primitive form.
For the zoologist this question will not appear material. Whether we have here evidence of a type just before, or just after, or in the act of, transmission to another, it would seem that we have at least touched the beginnings of human history more closely than ever before. The trilemma is aptly expressed in the impromptu verses of a learned friend on seeing the remains:—
"Simian skull and human thigh,
Why as neighbours are ye found
Deep beneath the Javan ground?
Grisly comrades, tell me why!
"Were ye one or were ye twain?
Didst thou, monkey, walk upright?
Wast thou, bowless, in the fight,
By thy straight-thighed cousin slain?
"What strange antics wast thou at,
Ancestor of unknown shape,
Ape-like man or human ape,
Pithec-anthro-hylobat?"
I refer to this discovery by way of introduction to the question of the evidence of the antiquity of Man in the British Isles, because I wish to urge the necessity of carrying the imagination far back. We seek for that evidence in implements fashioned by human workmanship, and we have also sought, for the most part vainly, for remains of man himself; but even if we should succeed in finding the rudest and most primitive implements that we could assert to be fashioned by Man's hand, we should still be far from the beginnings of Man. For the art of fashioning an implement, however rude it may be, is still an art, and it has to be acquired.
