22 EETIEWS. 



the animal kingdom; as one of its classes; as an order of the class Mammalia; 

 as a sub-order; a family; a subfamily; a mere genus of Primates; nay, if we go 

 back to Linnteus, as a species of a genus in which man does not stand alone ! The 

 same group therefore has received all imaginable positions in our system of classifi- 

 cation — a world apai't, according to some ; a unit imiong the myriads of animals, 

 aceoriling to othei-s ! The measure of human contradictions is full and no room is 

 Jeft for another." 



Oiir author is here, lio-werer, more epigi-ammatic than accurate; 

 for the '' tableau des contradictious" was not really completed until 

 an accomplished osteologist — proposing, in 1857, the system whose 

 basis has been discussed and refitted in earlier niunbers of this Eenew 

 — seized upon the one vacant niche and proposed to make of " Homo" 

 a sub-class. 



But M. St. Hilaire's remarks upon the estabhshment of the 

 order Bimana by Blumenbach, and its adoption by Cuvier, apply 

 "with redoubled force to this last of all possible innovations : — 



" And how could this di-\-ision stand, repudiated as it was by the anthropoloo-ists 

 in the name of the moral and intellectual supremacy of man ? and by the zoolo<nsts 

 on the gromid of its incompatibility with natimil affinities and with the true prin- 

 ciples of classification? Separated as a group of ordinal value, placed at the same 

 distance fi-om the ape as the latter from the carnivore, man is at once too near and 

 too distant from tbe higher mammalia— too near if we take into account those 

 elevated faculties, which, raising man above all other organised beings, accord to 

 him not only the first, but a separate, place, in the creation — too far, If we merely 

 consider the organic affinities which unite hini with the quadrumana ; with the 

 apes especially, which, in a purely physical point of view, approach man more nearly 

 than they do the Lemurs, and a fortiori than they do the lowest Quadnmiana. 



" "What then is this order of Buuana of Bhmienbach and Cuvier ? An imprac- 

 ticable compromise between two opposite and irreconcilable systems, between two 

 orders of ideas M-hich are clearly expressed in the language of' Natural Historv by 

 these two words: the hiunan kingdom and the human Jamilij. It is one of those 

 would-be via media propositions which, once seen through, satisfy no one, precisely 

 because they ai-e intended to please evenbody; half tmths, perhaps, but 'also half 

 falsehoods ; for what, in science, is a hall" tnifh but an error ? 



" Let us leave aside then, this order of Bimana — which in spite of the authoritj- 

 of two great masters — has in its tm-n become obsolete ; so that, reposmg on the iiiins 

 of all the rest there remain but two opposed conclusions, one purely zoological, the 

 other anthropological and philosophical : the Jmman Jamil//, that is to say nam 

 considered in respect of the facts of his organization and the phenomena of his life ■ 

 the physical man. first term in the animal progression but almost in contact with 

 the second: the hit mari kingdom, that is to say, man considered in respect of his 

 double natm-e; man as a whole, cro\ra but not integral pai't of the animal world, 

 above which he is elevated by his intelligence, as the latter is raised by its sensi- 

 bility above the vegetable world." 



Having thus clearly defined his position, M. St. Hilaire proceeds 

 to support it, in the first place, by discussing the distinctive charac- 

 ters of " I'homme physique," and proving that they are sucli as to 

 justify the separation of man as a distinct family only of the Pri- 

 mates ; and, in the second place, by enimierating the characters of 

 " Fhomme tout entier," and endeavom-iug to deduce from them the 

 necessity of the establishment of a " Eegnum humanum." 



The first argumentation occupies some sixty pages, and is so com- 

 plete and satLifactory as to be worthy of detailed analysis. 



