wer 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.

Linguistic and ethnographic investigations, especially the linguistic works
of the missionaries, long ago resulted in gathering rich material from the
storehouse of the language of races now living, and the latest works in the
realm of historical, etymological, and comparative philology had traced the
branches and twigs of the better known languages to stems and roots lying
far back. The result of the comparison soon became the same as in the realm
of the organic world: what presented itself in the system of the living
languages as a lower form, seemed to represent itself as the older and more
original form also in the history of languages. Therefore, all the
prominent linguistic investigators found themselves more and more urged to
accept a theory which declares language, this entirely specific
characteristic of man, to be subject to the same laws of development from
the simpler and most simple forms as the world of the organic. Long ago so
celebrated a man as Jacob Grimm,--"Ueber den Ursprung der Sprache" ("The
Origin of Language"), Berlin, Duemmler--follo