The order includes the femurs, a large and primitive family with
ape-like features--the Germans call them "half-apes"--the
monkeys, the man-like apes, and man. This classification
according to structure corresponds with the successive appearance
of the various families in the geological record. The femurs
appear in the Eocene; the monkeys, and afterwards the apes, in
the Miocene, the first semi-human forms in the Pleistocene,
though they must have been developed before this. It is hardly
necessary to say that science does not regard man as a descendant
of the known anthropoid apes, or these as descended from the
monkeys. They are successive types or phases of development,
diverging early from each other. Just as the succeeding
horse-types of the record are not necessarily related to each
other in a direct line, yet illustrate the evolution of a type
which culminates in the horse, so the spreading and branching
members of the Primate group illustrate the evolution of a type
of organism which culminates in man. The particular relationship
of the various families, living and dead, will need careful
study.
That there is a general blood-relationship, and that man is much
more closely related to the anthropoid apes than to any of the
lower Primates, is no longer a matter of controversy.
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