158 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



Most naturalists, from the times of Blumenbach and Cuvier, 

 in a systematic arrangement of the animal kingdom, have 

 considered man as either a type of a distinct suborder, class, 

 or even of a higher rank. Professor Huxley, however, and 

 other prominent men of science who have devoted special at- 

 tention to the critical comparison of the structure of man and 

 the apes, have insisted that as man, in all parts of his organi- 

 zation, differs less from the higher apes than these do from 

 the lower members of the same group, there is no justifica- 

 tion for placing him in a distinct order. In this view Mr. 

 Darwin agrees, but thinks that he may perhaps be entitled 

 to form a distinct suborder, or, at any rate, a family. Pro- 

 fessor Huxley divides the primates into three suborders, 

 namely, the Anthropodee, with man alone ; the jSimiadce, in- 

 cluding monkeys of all kinds ; and the Xemuridce, or lemurs, 

 with their variations and related forms ; and Mr. Darwin 

 thinks that, so far as differences in certain important points 

 of structure are concerned, man may rightly claim the rank 

 of a suborder, but that, if we look to his mental faculties 

 alone, this fank is too low. Again, on the other hand, in a 

 genealogical point of view, even subordinal rank is too high, 

 and man ought to form merely a family, or possibly only a 

 subfamily. Putting his creed into the plainest terms name- 

 ly, that man is a lineal descendant of some form of ape and 

 referring to the great differences between the apes of the Old 

 and New World, Mr. Darwin proceeds to inquire to which of 

 the two man's ancestry belongs. He finds that in the essen- 

 tials of the characteristics of the nose and of the premolar 

 teeth the relation is especially with the Old-World species, 

 and that, consequently, man must be considered as an off- 

 shoot from the Old-World monkey-stem. It is not, however, 

 to be inferred, according to our author, that man was identi- 

 cal with, or even closely related to, any existing ape or mon- 

 key, but that he diverged at an early period from the com- 

 mon stock, and that both divisions have probably been more 

 or less modified in the descent, so as to differ greatly from 

 their ancestors. 



Since man belongs to the Old-World division of the anthro- 

 poid animals, his origin must have been, as already stated, 

 in the Old World, probably in Africa, for reasons adduced 

 by our author. The country inhabited by him was probably 



