The proceedings at the meetings of the Ethnological Society in 1895, at which Dubois was present, had an almost dramatic character.(18) In the diverse opinions of Dubois, Virchow, Nehring, Kollmann, Krause and others, we have almost an epitome of the present state of the Darwinian question. Virchow doubted whether the parts put together by Dubois (the head of a femur, two molar teeth, and the top of a skull) belonged to the same individual at all, disputed the calculations as to the large capacity of the skull, placed against Dubois’ very striking and clever drawing of the curves of the skull-outline, which illustrated, with the help of the Pithecanthropus, the gradual transition from the skull of a monkey to that of man, his own drawing, according to which the Pithecanthropus curve simply coincides with that of a gibbon (_Hylobates_), and asserted that the remains discovered were those of a species of gibbon, refusing even to admit that they represented a new genus of monkeys. He held fast to his _ceterum censeo_: “As yet no diluvial discovery has been made which can be referred to a man of a pithecoid type.” Indeed, his polemic or “caution” in regard to the Theory of Descent went even further. He not only refused to admit the proof of the descent of man from monkey, he would not even allow that the descent of one race from another has been demonstrated.(19) In spite of all the plausible hypotheses it remains “so far only a _pium desiderium_.” The race obstinately maintains its specific distinctness, and resists variation, or gradual transformation into another. The negro remains a negro in America, and the European colonist of Australia remains a European. Yet all Virchow’s opposition may be summed up in the characteristic words, which might almost be called his motto, “I warn you of the need for caution,” and it is not a seriously-meant rejection of the Theory of Descent. In reality he holds the evolution-idea as an axiom, and in the last-named treatise he shows distinctly how he conceives of the process. He starts with variation (presumably “kaleidoscopic”), which comes about as a “pathological” phenomenon, that is to say, not spontaneously, but as the result of environmental stimulus, as the organism’s reaction to climatic and other conditions of life. The result is an alteration of previous characteristics, and a new stable race is established by an “acquired anomaly.”(20) Other Instances of Dissatisfaction with the Theory of Descent. What was with Virchow only a suggestion of the need for caution, or controversial matter to be subsequently allowed for or contradicted, had more serious consequences to others, and led to still greater hesitancy as regards evolutionist generalisations and speculations, and sometimes to sharp antagonism to them.