We can, therefore, with perfect safety apply to the fossil man, with which we are acquainted, the words of Huxley: “Neither in quaternary ages nor at the present time does any intermediary being fill the gap which separates man from the Troglodyte. To deny the existence of this gap would be as reprehensible as absurd.” The eminent naturalist who wrote this sentence did not the less seize every occasion which presented itself to point out, in the different human races, what are called _simian traits_ and _characters_. Is there then in Huxley an unfortunate contradiction? Evidently not. It is in his case, as in that of all true naturalists, only an abuse of language, against which I have already protested. Belonging to the white race, which they naturally regard as the normal type, confining their attention to the very substantial anatomical similarities which exist between the man and the ape, they compare constantly and solely the white on the one hand, with the anthropoid ape on the other. They forget that the _oscillations of morphological characters_, the inevitable result of the formation of the human races, must necessarily sometimes increase and sometimes diminish, in however small a degree, the distance which separates the extreme terms; they allow themselves to employ these figurative expressions, and I should let them pass without comment were they not sometimes understood literally, either voluntarily or involuntarily. We know that the English naturalist has himself been obliged to protest strongly against the conclusions which have been drawn from his words or writings. Huxley allows that the oscillations are never so great as to cause confusion. The _human character_, therefore, does not alter in nature; it does not become _simian_. The oscillations to which I allude may sometimes be observed in the same individual and even in the same bone. In the old man of Cro-Magnon, of whom I shall presently speak at some length, the femur is the broadest and thickest that M. Broca has ever measured in man, and we have found others of still greater size. Now, in the chimpanzee this same bone is broader and much thinner. Are we therefore justified in saying that the femur of Les Eyzies is partly _simian_ and partly _more than human_? Finally, what has really been proved, is the conclusion of Huxley which I have just quoted. Believers in _pithecoid man_ must be content to seek him elsewhere than in the only fossil races with which we are acquainted, and to have recourse to the unknown. There may be some who will murmur at this necessity, and protest in the name of _philosophy_. Let them say what they will, we are content with having experience and observation on our side. VIII. If we consider the general formation of the skull, all fossil races may be referred to two fundamental types; the one distinctly dolichocephalic, and the other advancing by degrees from metacephaly to a very strongly marked brachycephaly.