Since we meet with this type disseminated through time and space, always fundamentally the same, and sometimes reappearing in all its primitive purity, we are forced to choose between the two following interpretations; we have here either an _example of atavism_, the importance of which is attested by its generality: or else the reproduction of these exceptional forms, in the midst of _the most varied populations_ and under the _most different conditions of life_, is due to mere _chance_. The laws which govern the formation and maintenance of animal and vegetable races, and from which man cannot escape, do not allow the admission of the latter conclusion. This is why M. Hamy and I have regarded the Canstadt race as one of the elements of modern populations. In Europe it has blended with succeeding races, but asserts its past existence by the marks which it impresses, even at the present day, upon some rare individuals. In Australia, perhaps, it has some direct descendants in the tribes of North Western. VI. The epithets _brutal_ and _simian_, too often applied to the Neanderthal cranium, and to those which resemble it, the conjectures made with regard to the individual to whom they belonged, might lead us to think that a certain moral and intellectual inferiority was naturally connected with this form of cranium. It can easily be shown that this conclusion rests upon a most worthless foundation. At the Paris Congress, M. Vogt quoted the example of one of his friends, Dr. Emmayer, whose cranium exactly recalls that of Neanderthal, and who is nevertheless a highly distinguished lunacy doctor. In passing through the Copenhagen Museum, I was struck by the Neanderthal characters presented by one of the crania in the collection; it proved to be that of Kay Lykke, a Danish gentleman, who played some part in the political affairs of the 17th century. M. Godron has published the drawing of the skull of Saint Mansuy, Bishop of Toul in the 4th century, and this head even exaggerates some of the most striking features of the Neanderthal cranium. The forehead is still more receding, the vault more depressed, and the head so long that the cephalic index is 69·41. Lastly the skull of Bruce, the Scotch hero, is also a reproduction of the Canstadt type. In presence of these facts, we must assuredly acknowledge that even the individual whose remains were found in the Neanderthal cave was capable of possessing all the moral and intellectual qualities compatible with his inferior social condition. CHAPTER XXVII. THE CRO-MAGNON RACE.