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vii THE ANTIQUITY AND ORIGIN OF MAN 423find some relics of these earlier forms of man along withthose of animals, which were presumably less abundant.Negative evidence of this kind is not very weighty, but still ithas some value. It has been suggested that as apes are mostlytropical, and anthropoid apes are now confined almost exclusivelyto the vicinity of the equator, we should expect theancestral forms of man to have inhabited these same localitiesWest Africa and the Malay islands. But this objection ishardly valid, because existing anthropoid apes are whollydependent on a perennial supply of easily accessible fruits,which is only found near the equator while not; only hadthe south of Europe an almost tropical climate in Miocenetimes, but we must suppose even the earliest ancestors ofman to have been terrestrial and omnivorous, since it musthave taken ages of slow modification to have produced theperfectly erect form, the short arms, and the wholly nonprehensilefoot, 1 which so strongly differentiate man fromthe arboreal apes.The conclusion which I think we must arrive at is, that ifman has been developed from a common ancestor with allexisting apes, and by no other agencies than such as have affectedtheir development, then he must have existed, in somethingapproaching his present form, during the Tertiary periodand not merely existed, but predominated in numbers,wherever suitable conditions prevailed. If, then, continuedresearches in all parts of Europe and Asia fail to bring tolight any proofs of his presence, it will be at least a presumptionthat he came into existence at a much later date,and by a much more rapid process of development. In thatcase it will be a fair argument that, just as he is in hismental and moral nature, his capacities and aspirations, soinfinitely raised above the brutes, so his origin is due, in part,1The common statement of travellers as to savages having great prehensilepower in the toes has been adopted by some naturalists as indicating an approachto the apes. But this notion is founded on a complete misconception.Savages pick up objects with their feet, it is true, but always by a lateralmotion of the toes, which we should equally possess if we never wore shoes orstockings. In no savage have I ever seen the slightest approach to opposabilityof the great toe, which is the essential distinguishing feature of apes ;nor have I ever seen it stated that any variation in this direction has beendetected in the anatomical structure of the foot of the lower races.