The _anatomic_ results of ethnology are more favorable to the descent theory, although they too lead no farther than to the conclusion that the skull-forms of the lowest tribes represent a lower stage of formation than those of the higher, and that these lower skull-forms are relatively nearer to the ape-form than the higher, but that they are still separated from it by a wide interval. It appears, then, that even ethnology does not lead us essentially nearer the solution of the question than archaeology and geological anthropology. The relatively strongest support to the evolution theory is given by _comparative philology_; and since language is the most important and most decisive of all the distinctive characteristics which separate man and animal[5], this science deserves especial consideration. In the realm of the natural sciences, the enormous progress of palaeontology on the one hand and of systematic zooelogy and botany on the other took place step by step together, and thus prepared the way for Darwin's idea--which, from the rich material of analytical investigations, only tries to draw the simple synthesis, and to show at the same time in the zooelogical and botanical _system_ a representation of the zooelogical and botanical _history of development_. In quite an analogous way, a process took place in the linguistic realm which in independent investigations prepared the way for Darwinism, and now, since Darwin's theory has sought {95} acknowledgment in the realm of natural history, brings again Darwin's ideas to the support of philology.