Although the distance between anthropomorphous apes and man appears to be but small to Haeckel, he has nevertheless thought it necessary to admit the existence of an intermediate stage between ourselves and the most highly developed ape. This purely hypothetical being, of which not the slightest vestige has been found, is supposed to be detached from the tailless catarrhine apes, and to constitute the 21st stage of the modification which has led to the human form, Haeckel calls it the _ape-man_, or the _pithecoid man_. He denies him the gift of articulate speech as well as the development of the intelligence and self-consciousness. Darwin also admits the existence of this link between man and apes. He says nothing as to his intellectual faculties. On the other hand he traces out his physical portrait, basing his remarks upon a certain number of exceptional peculiarities observed in the human species, which he regards as so many phenomena of _partial atavism_. “The earliest ancestors of man,” he says, “were without doubt once covered with hair; both sexes having beards; their ears were pointed and capable of movement; and their bodies were provided with a tail having the proper muscles. Their limbs and bodies were acted on by many muscles, which now only occasionally reappear in man, but which are still normally present in the quadrumana. The great artery and nerve of the humerus ran through a supracondyloid foramen. At this, or some earlier period, the intestine gave forth a much larger diverticulum or cœcum than that now existing. The foot, judging from the condition of the great toe in the fœtus, was then prehensile, and our progenitors, no doubt, were arboreal in their habits, frequenting some warm forest-clad land; the males were provided with canine teeth which served as formidable weapons.” IV. In attributing a tail to our first direct ancestors Darwin connects him with the type of tailed catarrhines, and consequently removes him a stage backward in the scale of evolutions. The English naturalist is not satisfied to take his stand upon the ground of his own doctrines, and, like Haeckel, on this point places himself in direct variance with one of the fundamental laws which constitute the principal charms of Darwinism, whose force I am far from denying.