THE 



NATURAL HISTORY REVIEW: 



A 



QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF BIOLOGICAL SCIENCE. 



I. — St. Hilaiee on the Systematic Position of Man. 



HiSTOIRE NaTURELLE GrENERALE DES EeONES OrGANIQTJES, par 



M. Isidore GreofFroy St. Hilaire. Tome II. le partie. 1856. 



The author of tliia elaborate work, wTiose comparatively early 

 deatli lias so recently been deplored by the scientific world, devotes 

 a long and carefully vsritten chapter to the consideration of the place 

 and dignity of man in the universe — and more especially to the dis- 

 cussion of the proposition, that mankind should be regarded as a 

 distinct kingdom of nature, the " Regne humain," equal in rank to 

 the mineral, the vegetable, or the animal kingdom — a proposal 

 which, singularly enough, appears to have originated with the great 

 scoffer, Voltaire. 



One might be disposed to distrust the sincerity of a vindication 

 of the dignity of man from the author of "La Pucelle" — but no 

 such suspicion can attach to the similar conclusion of a pains-taking 

 zoologist, and as the chapter which M. St. Hilaire wrote upon this 

 subject appeared in 1856 — in the pre-Darwiuian epoch in short — 

 it may be instructive to consider both the data and the deductions of 

 an author whose studies had been especially directed to the apes, and 

 who pubHshed his conclusions before the din of recent battles arose. 

 We therefore propose to give a brief summary of M. St. Hilaire's 

 views, interpolating here and there, perhaps, a commentary of our own, 

 but, for the most part, leaving the distinguished French Zoologist to 

 speak for himself. 



After enumerating the opinions of the various authors who up 

 to 1855 had ventured to assign to man his place in the Systema 

 Naturae, M. St. Hilaire says : — 



" We have seen successive naturalists regarding Man as one of the kingdoms 

 of nature ; as one of tlie principal divisions or sub-kingdoms (Embraucliemens) of 

 N. H. R.--1862. B 



