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==Missing links==
[[File:Human pidegree.jpg|thumb|right|The human pedigree back to [[amoeba]] shown as a reinterpreted [[Great chain of being|chain of being]] with living and fossil animals. From G. Avery's critique of [[Ernst Haeckel]], 1873.]]▼
[[File:Pithecanthropus-erectus.jpg|thumb|left|"[[Java Man]]" or ''Pithecanthropus erectus'' (now ''[[Homo erectus]]''), the original "missing link" found in Java in 1891–92.]]
▲[[File:Human pidegree.jpg|thumb|right|The human pedigree back to [[amoeba]] shown as a reinterpreted [[Great chain of being|chain of being]] with living and fossil animals. From G. Avery's critique of [[Ernst Haeckel]], 1873.]]
<!-- The term "missing link" refers back to the originally static pre-evolutionary concept of the [[great chain of being]], a [[Deism|deist]] idea that all existence is linked, from the lowest [[dirt]], through the living [[kingdom (biology)|kingdoms]] to angels and finally to God.{{sfn|Lovejoy|1936}}-->The idea of all living things being linked through some sort of transmutation process predates Darwin's theory of evolution. [[Jean-Baptiste Lamarck]] envisioned that life was generated constantly in the form of the simplest creatures, and strove [[Orthogenesis|towards complexity and perfection]] (i.e. humans) through a progressive series of lower forms.<ref>{{harvnb|Lamarck|1815–1822}}</ref> In his view, lower animals were simply newcomers on the evolutionary scene.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Appel |first=Toby A. |date=Fall 1980 |title=Henri De Blainville and the Animal Series: A Nineteenth-Century Chain of Being |journal=Journal of the History of Biology |volume=13 |issue=2 |pages=291–319 |doi=10.1007/BF00125745 |jstor=4330767 |s2cid=83708471 |issn=0022-5010 |ref=harv}}</ref>
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