The case is the same with the skeleton as with the brain. I will here appeal to an authority, which none of my adversaries can reject, that, namely, of Huxley. After having protested against the statements of those who declare “that the structural differences between man and apes are small and insignificant,” the eminent anatomist adds that “every bone of the gorilla bears a mark by which it can be distinguished from the corresponding human bone, and that, in the present state of creation at least, no intermediary being fills the gap which separates man from the troglodyte.” In the general conclusion of his book, Huxley moreover recognises the fact that the fossil human remains hitherto discovered do not indicate any approach towards the pithecoid form. VIII. After the formal declarations of a naturalist, whose Darwinian convictions place him beyond all suspicion of partiality, how is it that we continually find the expression _simian character_ employed _à propos_ of the most insignificant modifications of some human type of which no one gives a precise description? It is, to say the least, an abuse of words, against which I have often protested. We have just seen that this expression assumes an anatomical fact which does not exist, and which, consequently, constitutes an error. It has, moreover, the inconvenience of being understood literally by the ignorant, and sometimes of deceiving even educated men, and of giving rise to a belief in imaginary degradations and comparisons. In fact, man and the rest of the vertebrata are constructed upon the same fundamental plan. Between him and the other members of this group numerous relations exist. Organised beings are not crystals whose forms are mathematically defined; with the former the whole of the body and each part of this whole oscillate between limits whose extent has not yet been fixed, but which is at times considerable. By these very oscillations the customary relations are continually modified, not only between man and the apes, but between man and the rest of the vertebrata. If we compare man to any animal type whatever, if we apply the same method to this comparison, and the same terminology, we shall arrive at singular conclusions. I will quote a single example. The most important fact in connection with the brain is certainly not its absolute development. It is the relation of this development to that of the rest of the body. The agreement upon this point, when animals are the subject of discussion, is general. It should be the same when the discussion is on man. Undoubtedly upon this ground of relative superiority or inferiority, upon which certain anthropologists so readily take their stand _à propos_ of races or individuals, the relations of which I speak constitute one of the most striking and essential characters. I subjoin some of these relations taken from a table of Duvernoy, and in which the weight of the brain is taken as unity.